The joint Dell Technologies, Intel Edge AI program helps right-size AI for the enterprise and reduce total cost of ownership
Digital transformation is a big and nebulous area but, at its core, there are some key pieces that need to be aligned to harness technologies in service of improved business outcomes and performance—artificial intelligence (AI), applications, connectivity and infrastructure. And bundling these technologies into a package that’s easy for enterprises to consume is the focus of the Edge AI Program co-developed by Dell Technologies and Intel.
Caroline Chan, vice president of Intel’s Network and Edge Group, noted that running AI on-prem as opposed to in the public cloud enhances context, reduces latency and improves security, alongside the economics. “Right now with AI, everything is happening in the cloud,” she said in an interview during Mobile World Congress Las Vegas. “More and more we are seeing this actually going all the way to the edge, especially on-prem in enterprises…We take AI to data. There’s no reason to take everything back to the cloud when you need data analytics happening right there, so you can make a data-driven business decision.”
Additionally, Chan said, edge AI requires connectivity.
Specifically, Dell and Intel’s joint offering includes:
- Optimized and verified edge AI applications gathered from a range of ISVs and optimized for Dell’s PowerEdge XR8000 server platforms which feature Intel Xeon processors
- The opportunity to right-size AI investment by addressing use cases like computer vision that have clear return on a short timescale and don’t require discrete GPUs. By aligning the tech stack with the desired outcome, enterprises can materially reduce TCO
- Because enterprises use a variety of connectivity technologies—wired, Wi-Fi, or private cellular, for instance, Dell and Intel have optimized the platform for multi-connectivity environments
- As it is optimized and validated, the Edge AI Program is easy to deploy and market ready, which connects directly to time to value
- And the solution set draws on the extensive global partner ecosystems of both companies, meaning there are a variety of solutions across many industries and use cases.
Dell Technologies’ Suresh Raam, director of telecom hardware partnerships and AI ecosystem, said the collaboration “is giving [enterprises] an easy button to consume these curated, pre-verified AI applications on Dell XR8000 edge-optimize servers…These are highly-scalable, configurable, flexible servers based on sled architecture. They allow you to dimension small/medium/large based on the deployment size and AI workloads.”
Raam also emphasized the collective ability of Dell and Intel to assemble an ecosystem of technology partners to help iterate the offering to expand its reach. This year the companies are planning a preview of 10 edge AI applications with ecosystem partners covering various enterprise use cases pre-verified on the Dell XR8000; industry partners for this initial phase of the program launch include Amdocs, Betacom, Druid, Future Technologies, GXC, HCLTech, Logicalis, NTT Data, Wipro and World Wide Technology.
“Enterprise AI is not a technology set,” Chan said. “It’s a solution set. Once we know the business problem, we can solve it.”
If you are system integrator interested in participating in this program or if you are an ISV with edge AI applications looking to add to our solution portfolio, please reach out to Bhupesh Agrawal at Intel (bhupesh.agrawal@intel.com) or Dell Telecom Systems Business Partnerships (tsbaipartnerships@dell.com).
Read more about Dell AI for Telecom and Dell-Intel Enterprise Edge AI Acceleration Program.
