The tech industry is visibly driving toward bringing the next generation of artificial intelligence-powered solutions to bear.

Harnessing a combination of mature technologies, from storage to graphics processing, networking and data infrastructure, generative AI is set to breathe new life into tomorrow’s applications. Containerization tools, such as Kubernetes, have already taken up a critical position in that stack.

“You and I talked at KubeCon about Kubernetes becoming boring, which means it has become a standard,” said Haseeb Budhani (pictured, left), co-founder and chief executive officer of Rafay Systems Inc. “Let’s not talk about Kubernetes anymore; let’s talk about outcomes. Now we’re at a point where people are going beyond the technology and thinking about, ‘What does my customer actually need to be successful, and what guardrails do I need to put in place so that they don’t go crazy, obviously spend a lot of money?'”

Budhani and Michael Quale (right), AABG global container lead and senior manager at Accenture PLC, spoke with theCUBE industry analyst John Furrier at the “Supercloud 5: The Battle for AI Supremacy” event, during an exclusive broadcast on theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s livestreaming studio. They discussed the hot topic of next-generation AI infrastructure and applications, with the central theme being the evolving landscape of Kubernetes and its profound impact on the AI industry.

Outcome-focused conversations

Once seen as cutting edge, Kubernetes is now the de-facto standard for standing-up clusters. The conversation must shift, therefore, from Kubernetes itself to the outcomes it can drive, according to Budhani. No longer fixated on the tech, solutions providers can move on to the strategic deployment of Kubernetes to meet those needs.

For its part, Accenture has since embraced this ideological shift. It understands that adaptability to customer needs, and driving the use cases they require, is key to staying competitive, according to Quale. This shift signifies a maturity in the industry, moving beyond the technology buzz to address real-world business challenges.

“What are [customers] trying to do? What are they trying to solve? As their trusted advisors, we bring solutions to the table based on their needs — whether that’s gen AI or app modernization,” Quale said. “We’re [also] seeing a lot of this [need for] mainframe modernization, getting away from Cobalt programs that are retiring, sunsetting those applications and putting them into Kubernetes.”

There also exists a strong tech and consulting partnership between Accenture and Rafay Systems. The success of delivering outcomes has been key to Accenture’s strategic approach to engaging customers, according to Budhani.

Accenture’s ability to guide customers through strategic conversations, steering away from technology jargon, demonstrates a unique capability in understanding and fulfilling customer needs. The collaboration spans training Accenture’s workforce on Rafay’s platform, cementing them as a trusted partner in the AI journey.

“We’ve been working on this partnership for a year now — Accenture is a big company. It takes time,” Budhani noted. “But we are at a point now where … they are our chosen GSI partner. We’ve trained a lot of their people on our platform, as one example. But the value here, the value I see is they understand how to have the strategic conversations with their customers and really help the customer.”

Here’s the complete video interview, part of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of the “Supercloud 5: The Battle for AI Supremacy” event:

Photo: SiliconANGLE