The delivery of computer-based applications and services through the cloud, or “anything as a service,” continues to be a significant trend within the tech industry. Dell Technologies Inc.’s founder and chief executive officer is quick to point out that his company has been involved in that trend for quite some time.

“We’ve been at this for a while,” said Michael Dell (pictured), chairman and CEO of Dell Technologies. “If you look at our balance sheet, you’ll see almost $24 billion in deferred revenues, so it’s not a completely new idea to us. We are aggressively expanding as-a-service so our customers and partners can access our solutions any way they want, and we’re committed to making everything that we provide available as-a-service.”

Dell spoke with John Furrier, host of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s livestreaming studio, during the Dell Technologies World Digital Experience event. They discussed extending as-a-service to storage offerings, the role of 5G and AI in tech innovation and Dell Technologies’ future as an infrastructure provider. (* Disclosure below.)

Storage and intelligent connections

Dell’s as-a-service direction will also include the storage arena, a focus of discussion during Dell’s annual event.

“One of the things we’re talking a lot about here at Dell Technologies World is providing a consistent experience no matter where customers run their workloads,” Dell said. “We’re going to be talking a lot about storage as a service.”

Along with as-a-service delivery, Dell’s CEO is also focused on the future use of 5G and artificial intelligence. The deployment of the new 5G wireless standard has been seen as more of an enterprise application than a major driver for consumer use.

“You really can’t talk faster on your 5G phone,” Dell noted. “It’s about making things intelligent and having the things talk to each other, and there’s going to be way more things talking to each other than there are people. It’s really about connecting all the things, and that’s an incredibly exciting possibility.”

In the continued evolution of AI, there has been concern about the potential for the technology to cause more harm than good. AI represents a necessary step to advance technologies such as 5G, according to Dell.

“Technology innovations have advanced human progress,” Dell said. “A long time ago, fire was technology. It can warm a home or burn down a whole village. As everything becomes intelligent and connected, AI is the only way to be able to reason over all that data.”

AI and automated tools will also be a significant part of Dell’s future, according to Michael Dell.

“You’re going to have autonomous infrastructure, and it’s going to be highly distributed on the intelligent edge,” Dell explained. “That’s going to enable enormous advances in all human endeavors. Dell Technologies is going to be the essential infrastructure to power all of this.”

Here’s the complete video interview, part of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of the Dell Technologies World Digital Experience event. (* Disclosure: TheCUBE is a paid media partner for Dell Technologies World. Neither Dell Technologies, the sponsor for theCUBE’s event coverage, nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE