Blaize Holdings, Inc.

Thank you for standing by and welcome to Blaze Inc.' 's first quarter 2025 earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are in listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question during this session, you'll need to press star 1-1 on your telephone. If your question has been answered and you'd like to remove yourself from the queue, simply press star 1-1 again. As a reminder, today's program is being recorded. And now I'd like to introduce your host for today's program, Lana Adair, Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you, and good afternoon, everyone. We appreciate you joining for Blaze's first quarter of 2025 earnings call. We are very pleased to be joined today by CEO, Dhinakar Munabala, and CFO, Harman Dersami. Before we start, we would like to remind you that the following discussion contains forward-looking statements within federal securities laws. All statements other than statements of historical fact are statements that could be deemed forward-looking, including but not limited to statements regarding our competitive position, anticipated industry trends, our business and strategic priorities, and our financial outlook for the second quarter of 2025 and the full fiscal year 2025. These statements are neither promises nor guarantees and undue reliance that should be placed on them. Such forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties available in our SEC filings that may cause actual results to differ materially from those discussed here. Additional information that could cause actual results to differ from the forward-looking statements can be found in the risk factors section of Blaze's most recent annual report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31st, 2024, as updated by our periodic reports filed subsequently to that 10-K. Any forward-looking statements on this conference call, including responses to your questions, are based on management's reasonable current expectations and assumptions as of today, and Blaze assumes no obligation to update or revise them, whether as a result of new information future events, or otherwise, except as required by law. The following discussion contains references to certain non-GAAP financial measures. The company believes that these non-GAAP financial measures are useful to investors as supplemental operational measures to evaluate the company's financial performance. For a reconciliation of each of these non-GAAP financial measures to be most directly comparable to GAAP metrics, please see our website at ir.gov. blaze.com. Details of our results and additional management commentary are available in our earnings release, which can be found on the investor relations section of our website at ir.blaze.com. Finally, this call is being audio webcast on our investor relations website, and an audio replay will be available on our website ir.blaze.com after the call ends. Now, we'd like to turn the call over to Dinakar Munagala, Chief Executive Officer of Blaze.

Thank you for joining us for our second earnings report as a public company. Since our last update, we're now moving from pilots to real deployment. Our large pipeline includes active late-stage programs with multiple contracts advancing from field validation into final negotiations. We've begun shipping production AI chips and systems into real-world deployments across smart city and different sectors, with momentum fueled by new partnerships in Q1 and Q2, including CBIST in South Korea, Turbo Federal in the US. We've also been developing a new turnkey vertical AI solution stack designed to combine our chip software and validated applications to help accelerate deployment in key sectors. We look forward to announcing this offering soon. We are operating with financial discipline and a clear focus on execution, supported by a balance sheet aligned with our near-term and mid-term priorities, with feasibility to fund operations, scale customer programs, and support strategic growth through 2026. For those who are new to Blaze, we build AI processors and software that bring real-time inference to the physical world, starting with video and vision and expanding into true multimodal edge intelligence. We do this with a unique combination of energy-efficient chips and integrated software built specifically for environments where speed and power and cost really matter. From processing satellite imagery on orbiting platforms, to fusing LIDAR and video streams for perimeter security at airports and smart cities, to enabling object detection and license plate recognition on roadside cameras and drones, our platform delivers real-time AI inference. For example, today most cameras can see, but they cannot understand. Video systems capture enormous amount of data, but they rely on costly manual operation to make sense of what is happening. This is where Blaze leads. We don't just talk about AI. We deliver real-time deep inference for physical environments, enabling intelligence visually and contextually and reliably. In the first half of 2025, we moved from development to real-world deployment. In Q1, we began shipping production chips and AI accelerator cards into smart city programs. We were selected by CBIST to lead the Chumbuk Digital Innovation Hub in South Korea, delivering edge AI infrastructure for regional smart city deployments. That momentum carried forward, and now in Q2, we're executing across geographies with active engagements in key US infrastructure initiatives, expanding into South America, Asia, and Middle East. At ISC West, the largest physical security event in North America, we showcase AI-powered smart city solutions across critical applications. Examples are perimeter defense, cool safety, campus monitoring, and public surveillance. Adding further strength to the applications, our technology is now integrated with Orion VM and VSaaS delivering hybrid cloud model for smart surveillance, ThriveLogic for school safety solutions, and Cividia for pre-trained vision AI models. This all demonstrates Blaze's ability to deliver deployable partner validated solutions for smart infrastructure. Our diversified global pipeline includes late stage engagements across smart infrastructure, public safety, defense, and industrial automation. Field deployments are underway and several programs are advancing into contract stage from field testing. Our partnership with Turbo Federal has already yielded an opportunity for 2025, focused on delivering trusted AI-powered inference and perimeter security in defense-critical environments. starting with video and expanding into situational awareness. We're finalizing a purchase order for Blaze-powered servers bundled with AI Studio, our orchestration software, bringing integrated compute and intelligence to customer hands. In parallel, our engagement with the Ministry of Defense continues to advance towards proof of concept and field qualification phases. This momentum reflects our efforts to build trusted relationships with high-value customers through targeted engagement, strategic pilots, and solution co-development across the U.S., Asia, and the Middle East. Because we are finding faster procurement cycles and government-led AI initiatives, these efforts are driving deeper engagements, strengthening our pipeline, and converting into signed contracts and revenues. This fraction informed how we built our next step. Today, if you want smarter cameras or systems, it usually means stitching together parts from different vendors, which takes time, money, and technical help. Customers have made it clear that they don't just want raw components. They need ready to deploy solutions tailored to their use case. I'm pleased to share that I will soon be introducing a new pre-integrated vertical AI solution platform like a ready-to-deploy turnkey AI stack in a box, combining our energy-efficient chip architecture, integrated software, and proven applications from best-of-breed ecosystem partners. It's designed to streamline deployment and deliver faster results in key sectors like defense, smart infrastructure, and public safety. Think of it like what Apple did with the Macintosh. It wasn't just a computer. It was a complete experience, a comprehensive tool that made advanced technology accessible and usable. With this upcoming vertical AI platform, what used to take three to six months of custom integration could soon be field ready in half the time. And early adopters are seeing up to 60% lower total cost of ownership. As we move into Q3, we anticipate sharing formal proof points and success stories from these deployments. To support the shift towards solutions-first approach, we're executing a dual go-to-market strategy. On one side, we work directly with high-value customers, especially in smart infrastructure and defense, where trust, integration, and long-cycle deployments matter. These include engagements with defense ministries, smart infrastructure projects in Korea, and national initiatives in India. In each case, Blaze provides the platform intelligence, powering critical systems in cities, transportation, defense, and public safety. On the other side, we scale through channel partners, leveraging our turnkey vertical AI platform as the foundation. These are full-stack, vertical-ready offerings built in collaboration with best-of-breed Edge AI application partners. For example, Videonetics in smart airports, Visibility in smart retail and defense, Always AI in mining, ThriveLogic and Cividia in school safety. Each partner brings proven deployable applications. Blaze provides the compute and orchestration to run them in the field. This combined approach gives us the flexibility to serve high-touch accounts while accelerating growth across broader commercial markets. So here's where we're heading. We bring together what systems see, the real-time video and the sensor data at the edge, with what they understand, the language models running on the data. This is multimodal intelligence in action, not just vision, not just language, But the fusion of both, video, sensors, speech, and structured data to create context, to make decisions, and act in the physical world where it matters most. Think of it like this. Small, efficient models tuned for real-world tasks, like those small language models you've been reading about. They're faster, lighter, more secure, and they don't need a data center to make sense of what's right in front of them. That's the future we're building towards. And it's already starting to take shape. This combination of edge processing, scalable software, and partner-driven deployment is how we deliver value today. Because what we're building at Blaze isn't just about chips or code, it's about enabling intelligence where the world needs it most. In the field, in motion, and in the moments that matter. This quarter reflects that commitment in action. From pilots to deployments, from concept to customer, we are executing with clarity and building momentum across key verticals. Thank you for your continued support. Now I'll turn it over to Harminder for the financial update.