Dell EMC Ready Solutions for AI: GPU-as-a-Service incorporate VMware vSphere 7 with Bitfusion to allow the creation and sharing of virtual GPU pools.

This approach improves GPU utilisation from around 15% to 80% or more, according to VMware cloud platform vice president Paul Turner.

It also provides self-service access to the appropriate GPU resources for a workload.

This helps increase utilisation rates by providing self-service access to the right resource for the right workload at the right time.

VMware acquired accelerator virtualisation company BitFusion last August.

These new configurations incorporate PowerEdge servers, PowerSwitch networking, and Isilon storage.

They use VMware Cloud Foundation with VMware vSphere 7 support for Kubernetes and containerised applications to run AI workloads on premises or in hybrid clouds.

Such workloads include image recognition, natural language processing, recommendation engines, and predictive maintenance.

“Artificial intelligence is a game changer, but our customers tell us they’re lagging behind in adoption because they’re dealing with skills and infrastructure gaps,” said Dell Technologies senior vice president of integrated products and solutions Tom Burns.

“We’re bringing together the power of Dell Technologies to help customers simplify the process of running AI workloads at scale in their familiar VMware environments.”

Dell EMC Ready Solutions for Virtualised HPC allow HPC and AI workloads to run on the same systems.

They include VMware Cloud Foundation with VMware vSphere 7 featuring Bitfusion (available as a factory installed option from July 2020). For very large HPC implementations, VMware vSphere Scale-Out Edition can be added to achieve cost savings.

This virtualisation can deliver up to 18 times faster AI model development, up to 20% faster hardware configuration and integration than self-installation, and an estimated return on investment of up to 111%, according to Forrester Consulting.

Dell EMC Ready Solutions are available on a consumption basis under the Dell Technologies On Demand program.

To support the new systems, Dell EMC OpenManage software has been updated with VMware vCenter integration (to automate software, driver and firmware updates), unified management of PowerEdge infrastructure, and – in the mobile app – provision for viewing power and thermal policies, perform emergency power reduction, and monitor internal storage.