The AI race has made infrastructure cool again – News

Enterprise technology is experiencing a “Cambrian explosion” of infrastructure, spurred by the growth of artificial intelligence.

The need for on-premises and hybrid solutions for AI has made infrastructure cool again, according to Kyle Leciejewski (pictured), senior vice president of North America sales and customer operations at Dell Technologies Inc. Dell is taking advantage of the momentum with its AI factories, which manage the AI lifecycle at scale.

“This debate of public or private is over,” he said. “It’s hybrid. When you look at the data sphere, 83% of the world’s data is in an on-prem data center today, and 50% of the new data that’s getting created is getting created out at the edge in the real world. The AI models that are most effective are the ones that are being powered by the company’s most unique and proprietary data.”

Leciejewski spoke with theCUBE’s John Furrier at theCUBE + NYSE Wired: AI Factories – Data Centers of the Future event, during an exclusive broadcast on theCUBE, News Media’s livestreaming studio. They discussed Dell’s infrastructure portfolio and getting a return on AI investments.

AI-ready infrastructure

Dell’s magic combo is its deep infrastructure portfolio and its delivery, according to Leciejewski. The portfolio covers everything from compute to networking to cabling, while Dell’s delivery focuses on the time to first token, then the reliability of the infrastructure once it’s up and running.

“Customers are looking for the easy button,” Leciejewski said. “They’re looking for the way to integrate these intricate systems in a turnkey way. That is the AI Factory from Dell. We have a leading position in every one of those categories. It starts with the predictability of supply and the relationship in the supply chain.”

Businesses are currently looking for fewer but more impactful partnerships, Leciejewski believes. Dell’s ability to help its customers with everything from developing a disaggregated architecture to ensuring better cyber resiliency puts the company in a strong position. The goal is to help the industry transition away from legacy infrastructure.

“Inevitably you’re going to start to see the more traditional infrastructure morph into this accelerated computing infrastructure,” Leciejewski said. “And us helping customers build that bridge in the enterprise where we’re already well ingrained across a very broad portfolio is typically how those engagements will flow and why I think we’ve got a really unique advantage to helping customers through that journey.” 

Because of its long history, Dell is in the ideal position to help customers modernize traditional infrastructure, according to Leciejewski, who suggests that the barrier to entry for AI may not be as high as people believe. Being a first mover is more important, as well as keeping the data in mind.

“This is the worst AI is ever going to be,” he said. “The data growth is going to be exponential. We don’t need to build planetary scale data centers to achieve this outcome. We’re doing this with dozens of GPUs, not tens of thousands. We are doing this with air-cooled systems, not advanced liquid-cooled systems and we are doing this in our existing data centers.”

Here’s the complete video interview, part of News’s and theCUBE’s coverage of theCUBE + NYSE Wired: AI Factories – Data Centers of the Future event:

Photo: News