The kickoff of VMware Inc.’s annual Explore gathering in Las Vegas this week was accompanied by the news that the planned $69 billion acquisition of the company by Broadcom Inc. had received approval by regulators in the United Kingdom.

The U.K. greenlight lessened concerns that competition would be stifled as a result of the purchase. This point was subtly reinforced during the keynote session at VMware Explore this week when Jensen Huang, chief executive officer of Nvidia Corp., appeared onstage with VMware’s CEO Raghu Raghuram for a joint announcement.

“What came across loudly and clearly to me was the one-two punch of ‘we are going to increase competition via our cloud strategy’ and they also addressed something that maybe flew past people … having Nvidia, the leader of Nvidia up onstage was huge,” said theCUBE industry analyst David Nicholson (pictured, left). “One of the concerns that was raised in the EU, in the U.K. was this idea that there would be an anticompetitive dynamic introduced in the guise of Broadcom, making it really hard for other hardware providers to integrate with VMware. And boom, Nvidia front and center who happens to be a customer of Broadcom.”

Nicholson spoke with theCUBE industry analyst Rob Strechay (right), at VMware Explore 2023, during an exclusive broadcast on theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s livestreaming studio. They discussed key takeaways from the conference’s keynote presentations and VMware’s future direction moving forward. (* Disclosure below.)

Broadcom plans investment

The Explore keynote also reinforced the influence of AI in the  IT ecosystem. The joint announcement with Nvidia further positioned VMware as a key player in the AI market.

“There’s a community here that wants to embrace AI,” Strechay said. “The cloud service providers that are out there want to embrace AI, and they want to see Nvidia up there.”

VMware also announced a number of enhancements to its core offerings, such as vSphere and vSAN, However, the company’s NSX security and networking service remains a key element in its cross-cloud strategic direction, according to the analysts.

“When I see mentions of the latest iterations and development that’s being worked through on things like vSAN, but in particular NSX, what I see signaled to the world is that they’re serious about continuing to pursue the cloud strategy,” Nicholson said. “Networking is absolutely at the center of this. An organization’s propensity to either adopt or reject NSX will determine just how much of this promise is fulfilled when it comes to that part of the strategy.”

Here’s the complete video discussion, 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 and other sponsors of theCUBE’s event coverage do not have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE