The computing landscape has been a subject of significant change and progression over the years.

One of the critical aspects to note is the emergence of a new silicon platform shift, particularly in the enterprise sector.

“There’s a big, huge shift happening, and when we are in it, we don’t tend to see it,” said Sarbjeet Johal (pictured), theCUBE analyst and founder and chief executive officer of Stackpane. “But if you zoom out and see it from the outside, the x86 platform is being challenged, mainly due to the AI developments, generative AI and more processing in the storage arrays, networking cards.”

Johal spoke with industry analyst Dave Vellante at VMware Explore 2023, during an exclusive broadcast on theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s livestreaming studio. They discussed an emerging enterprise computing paradigm shift and its implications on the industry. (* Disclosure below.)

The industry platform shift

The industry’s platform shift has led to an increasing need for intelligence at different levels, ranging from network and storage to computing, according to Johal.

“Anywhere you need intelligence, you need compute there,” he said. “That’s a fact, and that’s what’s happening. And new chips are emerging that are very specific to the workload.”

Nvidia Corp.’s successful endeavor in developing platform solutions for specialized workloads has paved the way for a multi-chip world. This shift toward specialization contrasts the once “wonderful gift of x86,” a general-purpose processor that performed core processing, memory management and other functions, Johan explained.

The collaboration between VMware with Broadcom, which is set to acquire VMware, could lead to their involvement in chip design, leveraging Project Monterey, Johan pointed out.

“With Broadcom, it may get that traction, because Broadcom is a hardware chips company,” he said.

Now that the tech is all specialized, what does that mean for VMware in the context of AI?

“VMware is going to a chip company, which is interesting,” Johan said. “I think they will benefit from it, overall, because most of the enterprises are trying to make sense of AI. They want to bring the AI in-house; they need standardization. There are only two pure software vendors in our world, which is Red Hat and VMware. VMware is much more pervasive in enterprise.”

The role of software

The interplay between hardware and software is integral to this new era. The combination of Nvidia’s CUDA and AMD Inc.’s open-source initiatives highlights the prominence of software in leveraging the hardware capabilities.

“The software and hardware combination is much stronger, not just the hardware,” Johal said. “Volume is very important with chips, but … if you put the software with it, your margins will be more than 15%.”

Johal further emphasized how hardware trends influence the stock market and software’s role in commoditizing certain hardware segments.

“In the beginning of the wave of any computing change, the hardware people benefit more,” he said. “Then they start going down, and when software picks up that hardware and uses that very creatively, that segment of that family of hardware becomes kind of commoditized.”

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

(* Disclosure: This is an unsponsored editorial segment. However, theCUBE is a paid media partner for VMware Explore 2023. VMware Inc. and other sponsors of theCUBE’s event coverage do not have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE