Generative AI (genAI) is the next digital transformation — and enterprises of all stripes are rushing to adopt the technology (or at least explore their options).

Tech giants are rushing to greet this shiny new marvel and gain market share, and Dell Technologies is no exception. The company today introduced Dell Generative AI Solutions in collaboration with Nvidia. The suite of new products aims to help enterprises with AI inferencing, strategy, implementation and scaling; support workloads locally on device; and provide training and other critical tools.

“It’s very clear in our conversations with customers that there is a unique sense of urgency that organizations of all sizes, verticals and geographies are facing in terms of adopting or trying out generative AI,” Varun Chhabra, Dell’s SVP for ISG and telecom marketing said in a press briefing. “We’re really excited to bring customers a full end-to-end scope of generative AI offerings to meet them wherever they are.”

Hot market, explosion in genAI interest

The genAI market is set to hit nearly $52 billion by 2028, representing a CAGR of more than 35% from 2023. The technology is anticipated to create at least $450 billion in the enterprise across numerous verticals over the next 7 years.

Dell is the latest in a series of tech giants offering comprehensive tools aimed at helping enterprises of all sizes deploy genAI. Just last week at its AWS Summit: New York, Amazon Web Services announced a set of new tools to “democratize” access to new AI tools, following similar rollouts by Amazon, Microsoft and Google.

This comes as more and more enterprises are exploring the evolving technology. A recent survey by Deloitte found that more than one-third (37%) of CEOs are implementing some form of genAI, while more than half (55%) are evaluating or experimenting with the technology. Furthermore, 79% of CEOs believe genAI will increase efficiencies and 52% believe it will increase growth opportunities.

Chhabra noted drolly of the technology in Dell’s press briefing, “you may have heard of it, it's very hot these days,” adding that it has “captured the imagination of people everywhere.”

“The value is very obvious,” he said. “There’s value to be had in a variety of different functions.”

Big questions around genAI

But while there is tremendous potential, there is also risk, Chhabra said, and enterprises are asking themselves many questions: Where to start? What are the best use cases? How can it be used responsibly? How can risk be minimized?

There are also considerations around how to best use data, how to be fair and accurate, how to “activate everyone” and implement enterprise-wide usage guidelines.

While “Dell is no stranger to AI,” the newest wave of genAI is different, he said, because there is more focus on customer-facing use cases, data privacy and security — compared to the traditional focus around back office or operations.

“There is an evolving set of use cases that are very public and, quite frankly, astonishingly well understood given how fast things are going,” he said. “The efficacy of large language models (LLMs) has gone up significantly.”

Scaling inferencing

The new category of tools expands on the rollout of Project Helix in May, Chhabra said, and includes Dell Validated Design for Generative AI in partnership with Nvidia, Dell Professional Services for Generative AI and Dell Precision Workstations.

Dell Validated Design for Generative AI with Nvidia is what Chhabra described as an inference blueprint aimed at speeding up deployment. It offers pre-tested and proven configurations to power inferencing with Dell infrastructure.

For instance, if enterprises need help with implementation or have their stack figured out, Dell and Nvidia will help them deploy, build up their stack and provide faster time to market, Chhabra said. Or, if enterprises are “very far along,” the new tools can help with scaling services, provide operational expertise, relevant experts and educational services.

“The key words here are really flexibility and agility,” said Chhabra.

Customers can start with a pre-built foundation rather than testing and experimenting from scratch. Chhabra pointed out that Nvidia has many pre-tested, pre-trained and pre-validated models built for many use cases.

“The easiest way to get started is to use what is already in the market,” he said.

Example use cases for the technology include natural language generation, chatbots and virtual assistants, software development, marketing and content creation.

“It’s aimed at helping customers take advantage of the value of generative AI as soon as they can,” said Chhabra.

Dell Validated Design for Generative AI comes on Dell PowerEdge XE9680 or PowerEdge R760xa with a choice of Nvidia Tensore Core GPUs, Nvidia AI Enterprise software and Nvidia NeMo. Customers can also combine this with unstructured data storage, including Dell PowerScale and Dell ECS.

The infrastructure is available via Dell APEX, offering on-premises deployment with cloud consumption and management. It is available globally today.

Strategy critical to generative AI

The second tool, Dell Professional Services for Generative AI, help customers with strategy, implementation and scaling to accelerate adoption

This starts with the creation of a genAI strategy to identify use cases and a roadmap to achieve them, Chhabra explained. For instance, Dell can help enterprise leaders assess current state of use, workshop with internal stakeholders on their vision for the technology and establish guiding principles.

Dell also offers full-stack implementation services and adoption services that apply the platform to specific use cases, he said. Once integrated, scaling services help improve operations through managed services, training or resident experts.

The goal, Chhabra explained, is to help organizations strategize (build a roadmap), implement (deploy a full-stack inference solution), adopt (apply to use cases) and scale (manage efficiently).

“It gives generative AI technology the best leg up in terms of being adopted by the wider organization,” said Chhabra.

Dell Professional Services for Generative AI are available in select countries now.

Supporting UX, expanded Nvidia GPU configurations

Meanwhile, Dell Precision Workstations provides expanded Nvidia GPU configurations to help developers and data scientists develop and fine-tune models locally on their device before deploying at scale. Built-in software Dell Optimizer learns and responds to the way people work, helping to improve performance across applications, network connectivity and audio.

“Infrastructure and services are really important parts of generative AI initiatives,” said Chhabra. “However, a very, very important part of the journey and momentum is really the end users.”

Precision workstations can support up to four NVIDIA RTX 6000 Ada Generation GPUs in a single workstation to run AI software frameworks 80% faster than the previous generation, Dell says.

Dell Precision workstations (7960 Tower, 7865 Tower, 5860 Tower) with NVIDIA RTX 6000 Ada Generation GPUs will be available globally in early August. Dell Optimizer adaptive workload will be available globally on select Precision mobile workstations on August 30.

Just the start, playing well with others 

Ultimately, Chhabra called genAI a “dynamic space,” adding that “we’re certainly just at the start of what we believe will be a long journey."

Dell’s goal is to simplify genAI solutions, he said, underscoring the fact that it will be vital for enterprises to tailor their tools to their data and that of their partners to differentiate themselves.

“It’s going to be vitally important for customers to be able to tailor their generative AI solution with their own domain expertise,” he said.

He also emphasized that Dell believes strongly in an ecosystem and collaborative approach; it shouldn’t be about just one vendor’s tools.

“We expect to, want to work, and are working with customers across the spectrum to really help customers with whatever their needs are,” he said.