VMware Embraces AI with an Eye on Future Growth

Broadcom, the owner of VMware, has announced that its VMware Cloud Foundation platform is now equipped with AI capabilities. This announcement took place during the recent VMware Explore conference.

This development marks Broadcom's effort to align with the swift integration of large language models in the tech industry, although it comes amidst ongoing criticism concerning licensing policy changes following the acquisition of VMware in November 2023.

The removal of the platform's free tier, alongside reports of aggressive sales strategies aimed at retaining subscribers, coupled with numerous legal disputes over perpetual licenses, has driven many users to reassess their IT infrastructure dependencies. Companies like Nutanix, SUSE, and IBM have gained some of these disaffected VMware users.

VMware environments are typically intricate, meaning that transitioning workloads away from such highly-virtualized systems can result in significant migration costs and potential risks to an organization's quality of service metrics. Therefore, many prefer to maintain their current system rather than undertake the challenges of migration.

Similarly, incorporating AI into VMware's solutions poses challenges and risks of similar repercussions. Modifying the VMware framework to deeply integrate AI could lead to stuttering workloads for end-users due to potential fundamental changes. In software, the more profound the modifications are, the greater the negative impact might be.

Broadcom's current objective is to ease the deployment of AI models and agents within its users' existing systems. The VMware Private AI Services, set to launch with VCF 9 subscriptions next year, will offer all necessary components for on-premise AI development and deployment, including a model repository, indexing services, vector databases, an AI builder, and an API gateway for efficient communication between AI models.

Conference participants were informed that AI's influence in enterprises would continue to increase, making its inclusion in VMware-based infrastructure logical. Currently, Broadcom's AI offering isn't groundbreaking but acknowledges the industry's direction. Additionally, the company revealed enhancements to the VMware Tanzu Platform, featuring more straightforward MCP server deployment and a new data lakehouse, Tanzu Data Intelligence.

Included in VMware's developments is the Intelligent Assist for VCF, an AI-powered chatbot with access to the VMware knowledgebase. This tool aims to extend the time between a user raising an inquiry and receiving human assistance.

The growing popularity of containers led some to believe that it heralded the downfall of traditional virtualization, akin to the expected decline of on-premise databases due to cloud services, which implied a challenge to Oracle. However, legacy infrastructure continues to pressure enterprises to remain committed to their existing platforms despite high licensing fees and expenses.

While VMware infuses its partnerships with AI enhancements, it relies on the legacy infrastructure central to the enterprise to ensure sustained revenue.

(Image source: 3;Virtual Try On0; by jurvetson is licensed under CC BY 2.0.)