Zoho says its cloud has the foundations to go bigger, Sridhar Vembu warns about AI

Zoho says it built its own cloud infrastructure from the ground up instead of relying on third-party providers such as AWS and Google Cloud. The company says this internal investment has given it many of the building blocks needed to operate as a full cloud platform, and it now wants to make more of that infrastructure available to developers through Catalyst.

Zoho CEO Mani Vembu explained the thinking behind the decision in a post on X, responding to a user who asked what led the company to build its own technology stack and whether it could become a full hyperscaler in the future.

Vembu said Zoho approached the problem differently from companies that focused on building individual applications. Instead, the company wanted to run an entire business using its own software. Mani Vembu calls Zoho a hyperscaler company.

“We want to run the entire Zoho business on Zoho, without depending on third-party applications,” he said.

To make that possible, Zoho developed its own underlying infrastructure, including databases, storage, identity and access management, messaging, search, caching and queues. This meant its application teams could build different products without repeatedly solving the same infrastructure problems.

Zoho began running its own business on its software around 2010. Vembu said this created a large internal customer that constantly exposed problems and gaps in the company's products.

Today, Zoho says it has more than 20,000 employees across over 20 countries and operates more than 16 data centres. Its own software is used for functions ranging from email, documents and CRM to HR, accounting, travel and expenses. The company also uses ManageEngine to manage its infrastructure and employee devices.

Vembu said the company has continued investing in its underlying cloud framework. Some of these services are already available through Catalyst, Zoho's platform for application development, while others are yet to be opened to developers.

“we already have many of the foundational capabilities needed to build a cloud platform,” Vembu said when asked whether Zoho could become a full hyperscaler.

The company plans to add more of these services to Catalyst. Vembu said managed PostgreSQL is one of the services Zoho plans to offer through the platform.Sridhar Vembu warns against relying too much on AI

The comments come as Zoho founder Sridhar Vembu has also been discussing the company's approach to technology and AI.

In an earlier post, Vembu said Zoho uses AI coding tools across the company, but engineers are expected to review and approve the code and remain responsible for it. He said the company does not force engineers to use AI tools and instead leaves the decision to experienced developers.

He also shared an example of an experienced engineer completing UI work in a day that would previously have taken around three weeks, with AI helping flesh out the implementation while the engineer provided the structure and relied on his experience.

More recently, Vembu warned against developers allowing AI to replace their understanding of the software they build.

Responding to a post from an engineer who complained that much of their team's work was being produced by Claude Code without people properly reviewing it, Vembu wrote: “I tell our engineers to use AI but never cede our understanding to AI.”

He added that the industry was “driving too fast in a fancy new car we barely understand how to drive, inviting disaster.”- Ends

Ankita Garg is a tech journalist with more than 9 years of experience. She is always curious about new gadgets and loves writing about them. When not writing, you will find her painting or sketching.