Generative AI does not necessarily have to be located in the data centers of hyperscalers. VMware announces partnerships with Intel and IBM to run AI “wherever your data is.”

This week VMware Explore is taking place in Barcelona and so we can expect a lot of news from the virtualization specialist. On opening day, VMware announced two collaborations with Intel and IBM that pursue the same goal: to enable companies to develop AI applications themselves and run them wherever they want.

In collaboration with Intel, VMware is bringing its Cloud Foundation software to Intel’s Xeon processors, which have the necessary AI accelerators. So VMware provides the software, Intel provides the hardware, to put it bluntly. The division of labor between VMware and IBM is similar, but Cloud Foundation is linked to Red Hat OpenShift and Watsonx.

Private AI

VMware launched the Private AI Foundation together with Nvidia in August and is adding two big names to this initiative: Intel and IBM. The advantage of “Private AI” is that your company data does not have to be sent to a distant hyperscaler data center: the AI ​​stays as close to your data as possible.

“When it comes to AI, there is no longer any reason to discuss trade-offs in choice, privacy and control. Private AI offers customers all of these things so they can accelerate AI adoption while future-proofing their AI infrastructure,” said Chris Wolf, AI guru at VMware.

The private AI offering is also of strategic importance for VMware. The company’s main goal is to establish a vendor-agnostic cloud platform that enables customers to centrally manage a hybrid multi-cloud environment. Now that everyone wants/needs to participate in (generative) AI, being able to run models where you want and not where your provider wants is an attractive proposition. The capabilities of the VMware platform must be competitive with those of hyperscalers.

Elephant in the room

Collaborations with Google Cloud and expansions to the Tanzu platform were also announced on the opening day of VMware Explore. There is one topic that remains remarkably quiet: the takeover by Broadcom. The event could have been the ideal opportunity to clear up any doubts that exist within VMware, but Broadcom has not yet cleared the final hurdle. The pending acquisition is the elephant in the room during VMware Explore.