At Supercloud 3, the online event hosted by the CUBE, executives from industry-leading cloud and cybersecurity organizations came together to discuss the confluence of three mega-trends: Generative AI, multi-cloud, and cybersecurity. VMware CTO Kit Colbert spoke to the CUBE host John Furrier on these topics, sharing what he hears from enterprise organizations and the approach VMware is taking to help our customers successfully navigate this paradigm-shifting change.
Watch Kit’s session, Gen AI: An inflection point for securing supercloud infrastructure, available on-demand here.
Kit reinforced the notion that we are at an inflection point as an industry, where new startups will form, and existing companies will adapt to deliver the value of Generative AI. While IT leaders are excited about the potential of GenAI, they are concerned in parallel about security, data privacy, and the integrity of their intellectual property.
A thoughtful approach to embracing GenAI is Kit’s recommendation, and what VMware is helping enable. Specifically, enabling choice in where you can run GenAI applications, whether that’s in a hyperscale cloud or on-premises, both at a sustainable cost.
“I do see thoughtfulness going into these discussions – what sort of architecture should I be taking, what dependencies should I be taking, and how do I ensure that I still get the choice of location – that is super important”
Kit Colbert, VMware CTO
For many, this choice may come down to the specific stage of AI app development. Enterprise organizations tend to have large data stores on-premises, and may want to train large language models close to that data, as a cost-saving and privacy-protecting measure. Then, when it comes to inference, choose the best environment to reach the end customers of each application.
Ultimately IT leaders need to determine how they can protect their organizations appropriately while allowing developers to move as fast as possible with these technologies. IT operators play a critical role in achieving this speed and agility and are at an inflection point of their own. How do they gain the skills they need to run infrastructure tuned for AI model training and inference, expanding the roles they have today?
Those that have worked with VMware through the years know we take career paths for our customers seriously, from establishing the massive ecosystem of virtualization experts, to running Kubernetes on VMware infrastructure (or anywhere else), and now running GenAI applications.
Be sure to tune into both the General Session and the Technology Innovation Showcase at VMware Explore on August 22, to hear much more from Kit and the VMware team.
The Past, Present and Future of Supercloud
Also at Supercloud 3, VP of Cross-Cloud services Vittorio Viarengo sat down with theCUBE hosts to reflect back on the Supercloud market and its origins just a few years back.
Jump into Vittorio’s session, The Past, Present and Future of Supercloud, available on-demand.
In this talk, the three discuss the origins of the Supercloud concept, which Vittorio calls “IT history repeating itself”. He recounts several moments in IT history where the amount of choice grew to the point where complexity slowed innovation, and a new abstraction came in to simplify and unleash the next wave of growth.
Now, as Vittorio explains, startups building new products are Supercloud by default – meaning from the start, they support multiple clouds. Naturally, these companies address a broader market and reduce friction for their customers working in isolated ways today.
For VMware customers, our goal is the same – deliver Cross-Cloud services that unleash the power of every cloud at a sustainable cost.
