Dell expands AI Factory with NVIDIA for advanced innovation

Dell Technologies has announced a significant expansion of its Dell AI Factory in collaboration with NVIDIA, introducing new servers, edge, workstations, solutions, and service advancements aimed at accelerating AI adoption and innovation.

This initiative addresses the growing demand for AI capabilities, as highlighted by Michael Dell, founder and CEO of Dell Technologies. He emphasised the importance of this collaboration in enabling organisations to harness AI efficiently and advance into the next era of technological innovation.

A standout feature of this development is the introduction of the Dell PowerEdge XE9680L server. This model showcases direct liquid cooling and supports eight NVIDIA Blackwell Tensor Core GPUs, ensuring rapid processing capabilities within a compact form. The server sets a new benchmark with the highest GPU density per node, significantly enhancing efficiency and performance with 20% more PCIe Gen. 5 slots and double the network expansion capacity.

Additionally, Dell is rolling out highly energy-efficient, turnkey, rack-scale solutions designed to accelerate large Blackwell GPU deployments. Variants of these solutions include an air-cooled design supporting 64 GPUs in a single rack and a liquid-cooled format accommodating 72 NVIDIA Blackwell GPUs in a single rack. These advancements are expected to substantially reduce time-to-value for organisations deploying large-scale AI solutions.

Another major component of this expansion is the Dell NativeEdge platform, which automates the delivery of NVIDIA AI Enterprise software. As the first edge orchestration platform of its kind, NativeEdge enables developers and IT operators to swiftly deploy AI applications and solutions at the edge. Businesses across various sectors can leverage this platform to analyse their edge data more effectively, with blueprints incorporating NVIDIA technologies such as Metropolis video analytics, Riva speech and translation capabilities, and NIM inference microservices.

The collaboration also introduces the Dell Generative AI Solution for Digital Assistants, designed to expedite the deployment of digital assistants providing personalised self-service experiences for users. This solution, combined with Dell and NVIDIA's full-stack technologies, aims to drastically reduce the time from implementation to value realisation, with automation reducing setup time by up to 86% compared to traditional methods.

Integrated services, including Dell's Accelerator Services for RAG on Precision AI Workstations, offer organisations specialised tools to develop AI applications more efficiently. These services and the associated workstations support AI and machine learning projects, providing a secure environment for experimentation, testing, and prototyping.

Industry experts, such as Dave Vellante from theCUBE Research, underscore the significance of such end-to-end solutions. He noted that Dell's comprehensive capabilities simplify AI adoption, addressing common challenges like data quality, security, and consistency. According to Vellante, the Dell AI Factory with NVIDIA exemplifies a streamlined approach to emerging AI workloads, promising significant reductions in risk and cost.

The new Dell PowerEdge XE9680L servers and other announced solutions will be available in the second half of 2024, with some services already available in specific regions.