April, 2024 - NAND Research

Amdocs Survey Says: Telecom Slow to Embrace Generative AI

Amdocs, one of the giants in the telecommunications industry, together with analytics company Analysys Mason, released the results of a global survey of communications service providers to understand how generative AI impacts those CSPs. The results were surprising.

While the IT industry rapidly embraces generative AI to understand and manage infrastructure, telecom is moving much more slowly. The Amdocs survey showed that less than a quarter of CSPs use GenAI today. The surprising statistic is that nearly half of the respondents haven’t even begun exploring the technology.

Nvidia And Dell Build An AI Factory Together

At last month’s Nvidia GTC conference, Dell Technologies unveiled the Dell AI Factory with Nvidia, a comprehensive set of enterprise AI solutions aimed at simplifying the adoption and integration of AI for businesses.

Dell also announced enhancements to its flagship PowerEdge XE9680 server, including options for liquid-cooling, which allows the server to deliver the full capabilities of Nvidia’s newly announced AI accelerators.

Research Note: NVIDIA H100 Confidential Computing

This week, NVIDIA made its confidential computing capabilities for its flagship NVIDIA Hopper H100 GPU, previewed in August 2023, generally available. This makes NVIDIA’s H100 the first GPU with these capabilities, which are critical for protecting data as it is being processed.
This Research Note looks at confidential computing and how it works on the NVIDIA H100 GPU.

AWS And Nvidia Expand AI Relationship

At the Nvidia GTC event in San Jose, Nvidia and Amazon Web Services made a series of wide-ranging announcements that showed a broad and strategic collaboration to accelerate AI innovation and infrastructure capabilities globally.

The joint announcements included the introduction of Nvidia Grace Blackwell GPU-based Amazon EC2 instances, Nvidia DGX Cloud integration, and, most critically, a pivotal collaboration called Project Ceiba.

Google Cloud Transforming Healthcare With AI

At the recent HIMSS24 event in Orlando, Google Cloud unveiled a set of new solutions designed to enhance interoperability, establish a robust data foundation, and deploy generative AI tools within the healthcare and life sciences sectors, all of which promise to improve patient outcomes.

Research Note: IBM FlashSystem 5300

IBM launched its new IBM FlashSystem 5300, a new entry-level storage solution with exceptional price performance, high availability, and enterprise-class data services within a compact 1U rack unit. The new array meets the needs of both small and large organizations facing the challenges of resource-constrained data centers and demanding workloads.

Quick Take: SPDX 3.0 Release

The SPDX community, in collaboration with the Linux Foundation, recently released SPDX 3.0, marking a significant milestone in the Software Bill of Materials (SBOM) communication format.

SPDX 3.0 provides a comprehensive set of updates, including an overhauled model, specification, and license list and the addition of SPDX profiles designed to handle modern system use cases. This release improves the versatility and adaptability of the SBOM format.

Research Note: IBM FQ1 2024 Earnings

IBM’s recently announced fiscal Q1 2024 earnings show a steady trajectory of growth as IBM successfully executes its strategic shift towards hybrid cloud and AI. The technology giant’s software and consulting segments led the charge, driving revenue increases and demonstrating the ongoing success of IBM’s focus on enterprise solutions.

Research Note: CrowdStrike FQ4 2024 Earnings

CrowdStrike released consensus-beating results for its fiscal Q4 2024, showing strong growth and record-breaking performance. The company also delivered better-than-expected guidance.

Research Note: Western Digital FQ4 2024 Earnings

Western Digital released its FQ4 2024 financial results. The company exceeded expectations with revenue of $3.5 billion, a non-GAAP gross margin of 29.3%, and non-GAAP earnings per share of $0.63. The success was attributed to a diversified portfolio of products and structural changes to the business that improved profitability.

What Microsoft’s FQ3 2024 Earnings Reveal About Azure

Microsoft announced its fiscal Q3 2024 results, demonstrating robust growth. The company reported a total revenue of $61.9 billion, a 17% increase year-over-year, primarily driven by the cloud segment.

Microsoft’s Cloud business, which includes Azure and other cloud properties such as LinkedIn, generated over $35 billion in revenue, up 23%. During its earnings call, Microsoft said that Azure’s expansion and the increasing demand for AI infrastructure propelled much of its growth.

Research Note: IBM Acquires HashiCorp

IBM announced its intention to acquire HashiCorp, a multi-cloud infrastructure automation company, for $35 per share in cash, totaling an enterprise value of $6.4 billion.

HashiCorp specializes in Infrastructure Lifecycle Management and Security Lifecycle Management, crucial for hybrid and multi-cloud environments. This move aligns with IBM’s focus on hybrid cloud and AI, which are vital for today’s businesses.

What Alphabet Earnings Tell Us About Google Cloud

Google Cloud showed significant growth during the quarter, driven by the increasing demand for AI and cloud-based solutions. The business is positioned for continued growth, with a focus on infrastructure leadership, AI-driven innovations, and strong customer adoption.

Quick Take: Western Digital’s FQ3 2024 Earnings

Western Digital reported strong earnings for its third quarter of fiscal 2024, with revenue reaching $3.5 billion, a non-GAAP gross margin of 29.3%, and non-GAAP earnings per share at $0.63. WD exceeded consensus estimates.

Quick Take: Apple’s OpenELM Small Language Model

Apple this week unveiled its OpenELM, a set of small AI language models designed to run on local devices like smartphones rather than rely on cloud-based data centers. This reflects a growing trend toward smaller, more efficient AI models that can operate on consumer devices without significant computational resources.

Quick Take: Intel FQ1 2024 Earnings Results

Intel announced solid Q1 earnings, with revenue meeting expectations and EPS exceeding guidance. The company’s results reflect a disciplined approach to cost reduction and steady progress toward long-term goals.

Research Note: Lenovo’s AMD-based AI Portfolio Update

Lenovo announced a comprehensive set of AMD-based updates to its AI infrastructure portfolio, which include GPU-rich and thermal-efficient systems designed for compute-intensive workloads in various industries, including financial services and healthcare.

The new offerings, designed in partnership with AMD, address the growing demand for compute-intensive workloads across industries, providing the flexibility and scalability required for AI deployments.

Research Note: NVIDIA Acquires Run:AI

NVIDIA announced an agreement to acquire Run:ai, a startup specializing in chip management and orchestration software based on Kubernetes. The acquisition is part of CEO Jensen Huang’s strategy to diversify Nvidia’s revenue streams from chips to software.

Research Report: Oracle Database@Azure

Oracle and Microsoft Azure recently announced Oracle@Azure, making Microsoft Azure the only cloud provider besides Oracle itself capable of running Oracle’s database services with the performance, reliability, and security of Oracle Exadata and OCI

Quick Take: Vultr Launches Global Inference Cloud

Vultr recently announced the launch of Vultr Cloud Inference, a new serverless platform aimed at transforming AI scalability and reach. The new solution facilitates AI model deployment and inference capabilities worldwide.

Research Note: Microsoft Phi-3 Small Language Model

Microsoft recently announced its Phi-3 small language models (SLMs), designed to deliver powerful performance at a reduced cost. These SLMs offer a compelling option for developers and businesses looking to harness the potential of generative AI.

This Research Note looks at what Microsoft announced.

Research Note: AWS Bedrock GenAI Enhancements

Amazon announced updates to its Bedrock generative AI platform that expands its capabilities while improving the user experience. These enhancements focus on helping developers create AI applications quickly and securely.

Research Note: HashiCorp Infrastructure Cloud

HashiCorp introduced “The Infrastructure Cloud” to aid organizations in maximizing their cloud investments, focusing on enabling teams to ship code quickly while minimizing costs and security risks.

Quick Take: SAP’s New Business AI Capabilities

At the recent NVIDIA GTC event, SAP and NVIDIA announced an expanded partnership to enhance generative AI integration across SAP’s cloud solutions and applications. The collaboration focuses on developing SAP Business AI, which integrates scalable, business-specific generative AI capabilities within various SAP offerings, including SAP Datasphere, and SAP BTP.

Quick Take: NetApp’s Updates to Google Cloud Offering & GenAI Toolkit Reference

NetApp is expanding its collaboration with Google Cloud to enhance data utilization for generative AI and hybrid cloud workloads, introducing its Flex service level for Google Cloud NetApp Volumes.

Additionally, NetApp previewed its GenAI toolkit reference architecture that facilitates retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) using Google Cloud’s Vertex AI platform.

Quick Take: VAST Data’s Nvidia DPU-Based AI Cloud Architecture

VAST Data recently introduced a new AI cloud architecture based on Nvidia’s BlueField-3 DPU technology. The architecture is designed to improve performance, security, and efficiency for AI data services. The approach seeks to enhance data center operations and introduce a secure, zero-trust environment by integrating storage and database processing into AI servers.

Quick Take: Oracle GA’s Globally Distributed Autonomous Database

Oracle recently announced the general availability of its Globally Distributed Autonomous Database, marking a significant enhancement in its database technology.

Research Note: Dell APEX Files for Microsoft Azure

Dell recently introduced its new APEX File Storage for Microsoft Azure, designed to enhance businesses’ multi-cloud capabilities. The new solution integrates Dell PowerScale OneFS, its high-performance storage system, into the Azure cloud, allowing customers to manage and consolidate data efficiently, reduce costs, and improve data security and protection. It also utilizes Azure’s AI tools to provide quicker insights.

Quick Take: NetApp’s Real-Time Ransomware Detection For ONTAP

NetApp announced new cyber-resiliency capabilities to help customers better protect against and recover from ransomware attacks. Integrating AI and ML into its enterprise primary storage solutions, NetApp offers real-time ransomware protection for primary and secondary data, regardless of whether it’s stored on-premises or in the cloud.

CrowdStrike’s Earnings Beat + Flow Acquisition

CrowdStrike released its fiscal Q4 2024 results, beating consensus on revenue and earnings while providing strong guidance for the coming year. The company also announced the acquisition of Flow, which offers unique capabilities for protecting data within cloud environments.

Research Note: SAP HANA Cloud Vector Engine

SAP recently introduced its new SAP HANA Cloud Vector Engine, designed to bridge the gap between LLMs’ advanced capabilities and enterprise-specific business needs.

Research Note: Intel Gaudi 3

Intel announced its long-anticipated new Intel Gaudi 3 AI accelerator at its Intel Vision event. The new accelerator offers significant improvements over the previous generation Gaudi 3 processor and promises to challenge Nvidia’s current generation accelerators in training and inference for LLMs and multimodal models.

Quick Take: Google Axion Arm-based Processor

At its Google Cloud Next event, Google announced its new in-house designed Axion processor, a series of custom Arm-based CPUs explicitly designed for data center applications. These processors are part of Google’s continued investment in custom silicon to enhance its cloud computing services’ performance and energy efficiency.

Research Note; Arm Ethos U-65 microNPU

Arm introduced its new Ethos-U65 microNPU (Neural Processing Unit). This state-of-the-art AI accelerator facilitates machine learning (ML) inference in many embedded systems and high-performance devices.

Research Note: AMD Versal Edge Series Gen 2

AMD expands its Versal portfolio with the introduction of its Versal AI Edge Series Gen 2 and Versal Prime Series Gen 2 adaptive SoCs. These next-generation solutions cater to the increasing demands for AI-driven and classic embedded systems, providing a balanced mix of performance, power efficiency, functional safety, and security within a single chip.

Quick Take: Wasabi AiR Intelligent Media Storage

Wasabi AiR integrates artificial intelligence to transform how video content is stored, accessed, and utilized. The new offering combines the cost-effectiveness and high performance of Wasabi’s object storage with sophisticated AI capabilities, including automatic metadata tagging and multilingual searchable speech-to-text transcription.

Subscription Growth Fuels Pure Storage Earnings Beat

In its fiscal Q4 2024 earnings release, Pure Storage exceeded revenue and operating profit guidance, demonstrating strong financial performance and market demand for its products and services. The most interesting aspect of Pure’s earnings is the growth of its subscription-based business, now accounting for more than 40% of its total revenue.

Quick Take: Dell Technologies New 5G Solutions

Dell Technologies introduced several new offerings designed to simplify the deployment of advanced 5G solutions by communication service providers.

The new offerings center around the Dell Telecom Infrastructure Automation Suite, which automates the management and orchestration of a CSP’s network infrastructure. The new suite also sits at the center of Dell’s Telecom Infrastructure Blocks for Red Hat update.

Quick Take: Hammerspace Hyperscale NAS For AI & HPC

Hammerspace unveiled its new high-performance NAS architecture, Hyperscale NAS, to cater to the growing demands of enterprise AI, machine learning, deep learning initiatives, and the increasing use of GPU computing both on-premises and in the cloud.

Quick Take: Lacework Expands Enterprise Capabilities

Cloud security company Lacework announced new platform capabilities to enhance efficiency for security stakeholders.

The enhancements include the introduction of Lacework Explorer, a combination of a security graph and resource explorer for better asset visibility and relationship analysis. New dashboards have been introduced to provide in-depth insights into the performance of security programs against set goals.

Quick Take: Datastax Acquires Langflow

DataStax announced the acquisition of Logspace, the company behind Langflow, a low-code tool for building applications based on Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG). The terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Research Note: MLPerf Inference 4.0 Results

MLCommons released the results of its MLPerf Inference v4.0 benchmarks, which introduced two new workloads, Llama 2 and Stable Diffusion XL.
Since its inception in 2018, MLPerf has established itself as a crucial benchmark in the accelerator market. The benchmarks offer detailed comparisons across a variety of system configurations for specific use cases.