Two dominant forces have recently emerged as game-changers: multicloud architecture and artificial intelligence integration.

As businesses strive to stay ahead in the digital race, the confluence of these technologies offers an unprecedented opportunity to reshape industries and drive innovation.

“It was not part of a traditional operating system,” said Kit Colbert (pictured, left), chief technology officer of VMware Inc. “They used to call it middleware, but now what you see is that it is kind of that infrastructure type of thing. I do think it’s interesting how the evolution of this space is really allowing us to help come in and standardize and take away some of that complexity.”

Colbert and Amanda Blevins (right), vice president and chief technology officer for Americas at VMware, spoke with industry analysts John Furrier and Dave Vellante at VMware Explore 2023, during an exclusive broadcast on theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s livestreaming studio. They discussed the intricate dance between multicloud architecture and AI integration, unveiling a future where businesses can truly unlock their potential. (* Disclosure below.)

Pioneering a new era: Multicloud and AI synergy takes center stage at VMware Explore

Colbert and Blevins engaged in a compelling conversation regarding the confluence of multicloud architecture and the integration of AI. The insights they provided shed light on the transformative potential of these two trends and the challenges that lie ahead.

There is an inherent complexity in combining multicloud architecture with AI capabilities. There are some parallels between the challenges encountered during the evolution of cloud-native applications and the potential obstacles that could arise with AI integration, according Colbert.

“In some ways, you can look at AI as another type of workload from multicloud,” he said. “We went through this phase we call cloud chaos. Now we have the next generation of apps coming with AI and gen AI. Are we going to make the same mistakes as we did in the past? Or, can we learn from those mistakes and actually go straight toward this cloud smart architecture that we’re talking about?”

Navigating uncharted waters: The intricacies of uniting multicloud and AI integration

Turning their attention to multicloud architecture, Colbert and Blevins discussed about the critical roles of cloud architects and platform engineers. There is a necessity for a strong platform engineering layer to streamline the management of cloud-native applications, preventing developers from delving into infrastructure intricacies.

“We want the infrastructure teams to do that,” Blevins stressed, speaking of the importance of collaboration across these layers.

In an analogy, Colbert likened multicloud architecture to operating systems, capturing the essence of the discussion. The evolution of cloud architecture allows the industry to simplify complexities and standardize processes, much like operating systems did for computing hardware.

“You need to have those controls in place so you know where your workloads are going to go,” Blevins said. “You talk about the cloud architect layer, but there’s also the platform engineer layer. Because if you’re missing that platform engineer layer, that’s the team that provides the PaaS, that’s the team that provides the CI/CD pipelines, and those are the ones that interact with the developers.”

Here’s the complete video interview, part of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of VMware Explore 2023:

(* Disclosure: VMware sponsored this segment of theCUBE. Neither VMware nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE