During the last multi-cloud briefing on July 10th, VMware talked about generative AI (GenAI) for the enterprise and how VMware is democratizing access to the power of artificial intelligence (AI) by enabling enterprises to build and serve in-house AI models that are compact and cost-efficient while addressing the need for compliance, privacy, and data security.
We can expect more information and announcements at VMware Explore 2023 in Las Vegas but the focus of the company will change: Becoming a multi-cloud enabler and building the digital foundation of the future
After the last multi-cloud briefing, customers and partners approached me to ask, what VMware is going to sell in the future. The answer to that was: nothing.
As always, VMware wants to stay ahead in the game and prepares for what is to come. So, whenever the customers are ready to build a GenAI platform, VMware is ready to deliver a platform. VMware Cloud Foundation and multi-cloud are going to be the foundation for generative AI, because they ensure maximum choice and flexibility in where a customer chooses to build, run, and consume their AI models.
Additionally, VMware partners with recognized leaders in the AI space like Nvidia or Intel.
NVIDIA AI Enterprise for VMware (NVAIE)
NVIDIA Enterprise AI refers to a suite of products, technologies, and solutions offered by VMware specifically tailored for enterprise applications of artificial intelligence:
NVIDIA AI Enterprise is an end-to-end, cloud-native suite of AI and data analytics software, optimized, certified, and supported by NVIDIA to run in virtualized data centers with VMware vSphere® with Tanzu® and VMware Cloud Foundation™ with Tanzu on NVIDIA-Certified Systems™. It includes key enabling technologies from NVIDIA for rapid deployment, management, and scaling of AI workloads in the modern hybrid cloud.
If you want to read more about it in detail, Frank Denneman has started a blog series about machine learning and NVAIE.
Generative AI (GenAI)
There is a generative AI boom that presents new opportunities and challenges. It has the potential to revolutionize how people and companies work in the future. GenAI, a type of artificial intelligence, can be used to create new products and services, images, audio, text, videos, application code, and automate tasks for example.
Since there is this hype now, leading service providers and organizations are trying to get into the pole position now.
This year’s keynote at VMware Explore US 2023 is about “Taking a Cloud-Smart Approach to Harness the Power of Generative AI”:
Join the VMware Explore 2023 General Session to learn how industry leaders are embracing a cloud-smart approach to harness the power of generative AI as they tap into data residing on-premises, at the edge, and across multiple clouds. VMware CEO Raghu Raghuram, President Sumit Dhawan, and a host of other speakers will dive into how VMware and its partners help enterprises build, train and run AI models while addressing the core challenges of risk and cost. You’ll hear from the key players charting the next course of enterprise tech innovation.
VMware AI Labs (VAIL)
Have you seen the latest job opening at VMware and some announcements on LinkedIn? VMware has transformed their research and innovation team into “VMware AI Labs”. This shows their plan and commitment to becoming the leading provider and preferred partner for organizations and their AI/ML initiatives.
Looking at the open “Machine Learning Engineer | VMware AI Labs” job opportunity, one will find the following information:
VMware AI Labs focuses on building differentiated technologies in AI, Generative AI, and adjacent systems. Advanced development (xLabs) efforts focuses on near-term goals to advance VMware’s relevance in AI and Generative AI.
Artificial Intelligence at VMware Explore US 2023
Browsing through the content catalog, I found the following AI-related sessions:
- Technology Innovation Showcase [K2906LV] by Kit Colbert and Chris Wolf – Dive deep into VMware’s products and solutions to discover ways to succeed in today’s multi-cloud world and the rise of AI. Experience demonstrations of innovations across apps, cloud, devices, edge and security. Discover unique perspectives on what it means to thrive in today’s world and be prepared for tomorrow.
- 100x Your Engineering Throughput via AI Tools [VIB1744LV] by Hüseyin Dursun and Steve Liang – The increasing popularity of generative AI and large language models (LLMs) has the potential to increase engineering throughput if used wisely. This session will share practices we have been aiming to enable inside VMware and how they can be replicated by customers and partners. Like any other major shift, there must be the right degree of coverage assurance for potential intellectual property-related issues while taking full advantage of what LLMs have to offer. The session will offer learning sharing and help the audience to have a faster start to their journey of AI-driven product and application development.
- The AI R-Evolution, why it will change the way we Work, Learn and Engineer [VIB2637LV] by Chris Gully and John Arrasjid – Are you curious about running AI workloads or in how AI is changing the infrastructure game? This session will explore the evolution of AI in workloads and in the cloud supporting them. We will discuss current solutions and share our insight in the challenges that exist. How do rules tied to ethics, governance, freedoms and research get influenced and applied? Do the three (now four) laws of robotics apply when AI is personified? How is AI being integrated into infrastructure technologies to provide more resilient and self-healing environments that will support traditional and newer workloads such as AI, machine learning, and deep learning. We will cover people, process and technology in this session.
- What’s New with VMware + NVIDIA AI-Ready Enterprise Platform [CEIB3051LV] by Justin Murray and Frank Denneman – NVIDIA and VMware have partnered to democratize AI/ML for all enterprises. VMware+NVIDIA AI-Ready Enterprise Platform delivers best-in-class AI/ML software, NVIDIA AI Enterprise, optimized and certified for the industry’s leading enterprise workload platforms, VMware Cloud Foundation & VMware vSphere. Join this talk to hear Justin Murray, Frank Denneman, and an NVIDIA speaker and learn more about this VMware & NVIDIA AI initiative. Watch out for updates to this abstract for some new announcements.
- AI Powers New Use Cases with VMware Data Products [MAPB2795LV] by Ivan Novick and Ian Pytlarz – 2023 ushered in rapid development in AI, with the improvements in large language models surprising everyone. AI models can be trained to understand the meaning of natural language text as well as unstructured data, such as images, audio and video. Alone, AI can be used to solve new problems. But when combined with traditional big data analytics technologies and open source software, companies can rapidly deploy high ROI applications powered by neural networks and AI, and help lower cost and grow revenue in their business while staying competitive. In this talk, we will discuss new uses cases that were not possible last year, as well as architectures and strategies to rapidly build out the capabilities with VMware Data Solutions and the VMware Application Catalog.
- Data Science Deep Dive in Anywhere Workspace, and What AI Means for EUC [EUSB2527LV] by Johan van Amersfoort and Hayden Davis – VMware Anywhere Workspace has been leveraging data science for years. And with our autonomous workspace vision, data science is getting even more important. First, we will look under the hood of Anywhere Workspace to learn how we leverage machine learning and AI. Then, with generative AI and large language models making stunning advancements recently, we will discuss ideas about how these might affect the future of employee experience, security, and IT modernization.
- Integrated MLOps – Accelerating AI-Powered Finance with VMware [INDB2221LV] by Paul Nothard and Yuval Zukerman – AI and machine learning (ML) are hot topics but fraught with danger in regulated industries. Talking with financial services chief risk officers, we understand the concerns our customers have regarding the control of data, the recreation of ML data sets, and most importantly, how AI decisions have been made to demonstrate a lack of bias and clear business decisioning. In our session, you will hear how VMware’s industry solution team, working with partners can help you navigate this danger and hopefully sleep better at night. The panel will be comprised of experts from VMware, our partners, and customer(s).
Conclusion
I guess we have to wait and see what VMware reveals at Explore US at the end of August 2023. I am excited to be in Las Vegas this year and hopefully, I find the time to summarize all the major announcements for you – like I did last year:
