How TiDB is solving enterprise data challenges with scalability and speed

181 zettabytes by 2025! That’s the amount of data expected to be created, captured, copied and consumed globally this year. The projection is a meteoric rise from the already overwhelming 64 zettabytes documented in 2020.

As global organizations gear up for an AI-powered future, businesses need databases that can handle massive workloads and scale seamlessly. Traditional databases like MySQL or PostgreSQL often struggle to meet these demands, leading to operational challenges and increased maintenance costs. As workloads increase, many businesses demand 24/7 uptime along with real-time analytics, which many relational databases are not optimized for.

When SHAREit, a content-sharing platform, faced challenges in managing its recommendation system, the company needed a solution that could efficiently handle high-dimensional data for real-time recommendations and semantic searches. By integrating PingCAP’s TiDB database, SHAREit was able to streamline its AI workflow, facilitating seamless training and updating of machine learning models, thereby leading to an enhanced accuracy of recommendations.

TiDB, an open-source, distributed SQL database developed by PingCAP, is emerging as a game-changer in data management. “TiDB excels in handling high concurrency and data-intensive workloads, making it particularly suitable for digital-native businesses in sectors like fintech, e-commerce, logistics, gaming, Web3 and SaaS,” says Bhanu Jamwal, Head of India Business, TiDB. “Its architecture and features are designed to provide scalability, high availability, and real-time processing capabilities, which are crucial for modern applications that demand robust performance and reliability,” he adds.

What sets TiDB apart?

TiDB’s horizontal scalability allows it to efficiently manage growing data volumes and high concurrency demands. “By separating computing from storage, TiDB enables independent scaling of these resources. This means that additional nodes can be added to the system to increase capacity without disrupting ongoing operations,” Jamwal shares.

In high concurrency scenarios, such as those found in financial services or real-time data processing applications, TiDB's architecture supports a large number of concurrent operations by distributing the workload across multiple nodes.

Secondly, TiDB's Hybrid Transactional and Analytical Processing capabilities also provide a unified solution for handling both online transactional processing and online analytical processing workloads within a single system. This integration allows for real-time insights from transactional data without the need for separate data warehousing solutions.

Next, the computing-storage separation architecture of TiDB enhances its scalability and elasticity. This design allows users to scale out or scale in computing or storage capacity as needed, without impacting application performance.

TiDB is designed as a cloud-native distributed database, providing flexible scalability, reliability, and security on cloud platforms. “This design allows users to elastically scale TiDB to meet changing workload requirements, with data replicas scheduled across different cloud availability zones to ensure high availability and disaster tolerance,” he says.

Ensuring compliance and data integrity

Businesses face data protection challenges daily, and the stakes are especially high in regulated industries like finance and healthcare. With more user access points, the risk of vulnerabilities grows, leaving databases exposed to threats like SQL injection attacks, denial-of-service attacks, and exploits of unpatched vulnerabilities. The consequences include potential financial losses and, just as damaging, a blow to the organization’s reputation.

“TiDB’s Trust Hub merges the highest standards of data protection with Zero Trust privacy and security principles. Zero Trust is a model designed to protect data and systems by ensuring that no one is trusted by default, whether they are inside or outside the organization. We strictly follow global regulations like General Data Protection Regulation and California Consumer Privacy Act to safeguard customers’ personal data,” Jamwal explains.

“Our privacy practices include data minimization, purpose limitation, and gives full control over how customer data is used, including access and deletion options. We use advanced measures such as end-to-end encryption, multi-factor authentication, and continuous threat detection to protect customer data from unauthorized access and cyber threats,” he adds.

The way forward

TiDB is currently working on a next-generation database architecture in addition to its current offering that would introduce groundbreaking architecture for customers of any scale, Jamwal reveals.

“Imagine a next-gen architecture that can be like serverless but can now be deployed within your premise, thus having 100% control of your data, while leveraging all the classics of serverless architecture and deploying it anywhere you feel like. This will be a game-changer in the database industry, and TiDB will be at the forefront of this innovation,” he says.

Vector databases are becoming a key component in retrieval-augmented generation-based AI applications, especially with the rise of large language models and other AI advancements. With a vector database, we’re not just retrieving data, but retrieving the most relevant data. And that data is typically in the form of videos, audio, social media comments, community content, and the like.

While vector storage has existed for decades, its adoption has surged as companies seek scalable solutions to handle growing data volumes. TiDB addresses this need by integrating vector capabilities directly into its cluster, enabling seamless support for transactional workloads, real-time analytical processing, and vectorized data storage—all within a single, unified platform, ensuring enterprises can scale their AI-driven applications without compromising performance. As TiDB strengthens its focus on India and continues to tackle growing enterprise data challenges in the region, it is hosting TiDB User Day India.

TiDB User Day India 2025

TiDB will host its inaugural TiDB User Day India on 26 March 2025 in Bengaluru. Join the event to explore real-world use cases, discover the latest trends, and learn best practices from the TiDB user community.

Whether you’re new to TiDB or an experienced user, this event will help you connect with peers and get inspired by innovative solutions leveraging NewSQL databases.

Date: Wednesday, 26 March 2025

Time: 09:00 AM – 07:30 PM

Venue: JW Marriott Hotel, Bengaluru

Why Attend?

01. Hear from real-world users who have leveraged TiDB for business growth and innovation.

02. Explore TiDB’s architecture, advanced features, and best practices with experts.

03. Gain insights from industry leaders on the future of distributed databases.

04. Network with TiDB users, PingCAP engineers, and peers to exchange experiences.

Don't miss TiDB User Day India 2025! Join top database experts and industry leaders to explore cutting-edge innovations in distributed databases. Seats are limited,