Gartner 2022 China Hyper‑Converged Infrastructure Market Landscape and Vendor Analysis

Gartner recently released its 2022 China Hyper‑Converged Infrastructure (HCI) market competition landscape report, updating the 2019 analysis and detailing market trends, growth forecasts, and the evolving vendor ecosystem.

The report defines HCI as the integration of storage, compute and networking into a single system to simplify data‑center complexity and improve scalability, allowing multiple servers to form a shared resource pool.

China’s HCI market is entering the early mainstream stage, with both SMBs and large enterprises adopting HCI as a core data‑center component. The market is projected to grow from $1.8 billion in 2021 to about $3 billion by 2025, potentially outpacing the global CAGR of 14%.

Application scenarios are expanding from general use and VDI to hybrid cloud, cloud‑native, and edge environments, driving vendors to add capabilities such as containers, networking, security, infrastructure management and cloud management.

Gartner classifies Chinese HCI vendors into three categories:

Large DCI Vendors – e.g., Huawei, H3C, Inspur, Lenovo, offering strong hardware cost advantages, market coverage and cloud services.

Specialist HCI Vendors – e.g., ArcherOS (An‑Chao‑Yun), SmartX (Zhi‑Ling‑Hai‑Na), Zettakit, focusing on industry‑specific strengths, hardware‑neutral and cloud‑neutral solutions.

Crossover Vendors – e.g., China Mobile (CMCC), EasyStack, QingCloud, Sangfor, Topsec, ZStack, leveraging cross‑selling opportunities, bundled solutions and cloud services.

Vendor Highlights

Huawei (FusionCube) – Supports KVM‑based FusionSphere and vSphere, offers FusionCube 1000 for general workloads and FusionCube 500 for ROBO/edge use cases, emphasizes integration with 5G, Kunpeng processors and an ISV “Smart Choice” program.

H3C (UIS) – Provides KVM‑based virtualization, includes storage (ONEStor 3.0) and security (UIS‑Sec), supports both hardware and software delivery, and integrates with private, hybrid and edge clouds.

Inspur (InCloud Rail / inMerge) – Offers KVM‑based InCloud‑Sphere, unified management of VMs, containers and bare metal, and supports both appliance and software delivery.

Lenovo (ThinkAgile, AIO) – Builds on Nutanix, VMware and Microsoft technologies, delivers HX/VX/MX systems and a domestically developed AIO appliance for VDI and edge scenarios.

ArcherOS (An‑Chao‑Yun) – Provides KVM and vSphere support, integrates networking and security functions, and offers both appliance and software subscription models.

SmartX (Zhi‑Ling‑Hai‑Na) – Offers the SMTX OS hyper‑converged platform supporting VMware, Citrix, RDMA, persistent memory, and delivers both software and appliance (SMTX Halo) forms.

Zettakit – Early HCI pioneer with a CPU+GPU dual‑compute architecture, GPU virtualization across NVIDIA, AMD and Intel, targeting GIS, remote sensing, smart manufacturing and aerospace sectors.

China Mobile (CMCC) – Drives cloud‑edge integration through its “cloud‑network‑edge” strategy, extensive resource layout (N+31+X), and a suite of cloud‑network fusion products.

EasyStack – Open‑source‑driven cloud provider, evolves from OpenStack to Kubernetes, offers cloud‑native and digital‑native infrastructure, and supports subscription‑based consumption.

QingCloud – Hybrid‑cloud ICT vendor with the QingCube hyper‑converged system, delivering a full‑stack platform across IaaS, PaaS and SaaS layers.

Sangfor – Security‑focused vendor integrating KVM virtualization, distributed storage, network virtualization and security functions, offering both appliance and software delivery.

Topsec – Combines security expertise with HCI, providing compute, storage, network and security virtualization, and supporting domestic CPUs and operating systems.

ZStack – Open‑source cloud engine offering the ZStack Cube hyper‑converged platform with compute, storage, network, GPU virtualization and multi‑cloud management.

The report notes that domestic vendors are gaining market share as international players like VMware, Nutanix and Dell see reduced presence due to localization policies, creating opportunities for Chinese suppliers.