Dive Brief:
-
Nutanix and IBM announced Tuesday that they will work together to enable IBM to deliver Nutanix's Enterprise Cloud Platform software on IBM's Power servers, according to GeekWire.
-
Where the companies see a sweet spot is in giving customers not just real-time reaction, but the ability to gather, crunch and predict, according the press release.
-
Hyperconverged systems have a market forecast of close to $6 billion by 2020. IT departments are aware of the need and the benefits "next generation of datacenter infrastructure technology,” said Stefanie Chiras, VP Power Systems at IBM, in a press release.
Dive Insight:
A recent report from Narrative Science and the National Business Research Institute found that more than half of enterprises plan to use AI by 2018. But processes like machine learning, DevOps and AI require very powerful computing. Through their collaboration, IBM and Nutanix want to provide the types of data centers enterprises can use to make these compute-intense processes possible. To make it all work, the companies will rely on IBM’s Power chips rather than Intel chips. IBM already runs its Watson cognitive computing programs on Power chips.
For IBM, it's all part of its strategy to rule the cognitive computing/AI space. But Intel doesn’t intend to let that happen without a fight. Last year, Intel bought deep learning startup Nervana Systems to help expand its AI capabilities.
For IBM and Intel, AI and cognitive computing provide potential new revenue streams as their traditional businesses struggle.
