A week after picking up Bitfusion Inc. to provide better support for customers running machine learning workloads, VMware Inc. has made another strategic acquisition in artificial intelligence.

The company on Thursday announced that it’s buying Palo Alto, California-based Uhana Inc. for an undisclosed sum. The startup previously raised an undisclosed Series A funding round from New Enterprise Associates.

Uhana was founded in 2016 by Sachin Katti, an associate professor of electrical engineering and computer science at Stanford University, and Manu Bansal, an engineer who carried out his doctorate research in Katti’s group. The startup has built an AI-powered analytics platform that helps carriers find ways to optimize their networks.

The software is made up of two main components. The first is a stream processing engine that hoovers up operational logs from a telecommunication provider’s infrastructure, while the other is a machine learning module that turns the data into usable insights.

Uhana gives carriers insight into the quality of service their end-users experience. In parallel, its AI algorithms scan the collected operational data for anomalies, flag potential network issues and provide advice on how to fix them. Problems are prioritized based on importance to help engineers determine which ones they should tackle first.

According to VMware, Uhana’s algorithms are sensitive enough to detect localized anomalies affecting only specific user groups or cloud applications. The software does so by combining the operational data it collects from carrier infrastructure with information about the services users access.

The acquisition will boost VMware’s telecommunications business. The company offers a carrier-grade network management platform, vCloud NFV, that is used by more than 70 service providers worldwide, including AT&T Inc., Sprint Corp. and Vodafone plc.

Uhana’s technology will help enhance the complementary analytics tools VMware sells alongside vCloud NFC. Specifically, the company plans to integrate the software into VMware Smart Assurance and VMware Smart Experience, which enable carriers to detect technical issues and analyze the efficiency of their operations.

VMware is on something of an acquisition streak. With its recent purchases of Bitfusion and Avi Networks Inc., an application delivery specialist that it snapped up a few weeks ago, the company has now bought three startups in under two months. 

Photo: Dell Technologies