Dell Really Meant it When they Called Dell Tech World 2024 the AI Edition

Dell Technology World 2024: AI Edition

At the recent Dell Technology World 2024 in Las Vegas, the company wasn’t shy about focusing on generative AI. In fact, the slides shown during Michael Dell’s keynote all said Dell Technology World: AI Edition.

Why AI Focus?

Now some may be surprised to see a company like Dell putting all of the focus of their core technology event on AI. After all, when people think of generative AI they are probably more likely to reference companies like NVIDIA, OpenAI, and Microsoft.

But while GPUs and public Large Language Models (LLMs) get most of the attention, increasingly, businesses are turning to major IT infrastructure providers to help them with their adoption of generative AI. This is because many organizations’ generative AI strategies are focused less on the cloud and public LLMs and more on the ability of businesses to use their own data and internal systems to create their own models and internal AI capabilities.

AI Adoption Trends

Recent Aberdeen research has found that nearly 70% of businesses are using AI in some form, either through embedded offerings or through a strategic decision to adopt generative AI. And among these AI businesses we see a large focus on improving internal server, storage and infrastructure capabilities.

For example, 53% of businesses adopting AI in our research are looking to invest in AI-ready servers. When looking at solutions such as Dell’s AI Factory, we see that there is a definite market for these types of infrastructure offerings that can help businesses more easily adopt generative AI.

Key Announcements

Other core areas of the keynotes and announcements at Dell Technology World highlighted the importance of building an entire IT infrastructure that is AI-ready. They talked about improved network connectivity to speed connections between data, applications, and AI systems. They covered high-performance storage systems built to handle the massive amounts of data that AI requires and they looked at solutions designed to minimize the power and resource demands that can come with generative AI.

Conclusion

All of this makes sense and is a good starting point for any business looking to adopt generative AI. Like a high performance racing car, while a fast engine is vital, having the right chassis, transmission and tires can have just as much of an impact on performance. Similarly, while GPUs and LLMs are necessary for AI, businesses also need to focus on the end-to-end foundation in order to succeed with generative AI.