The AI revolution is entering a new phase — one defined not by hype cycles or abstract promises, but by practical deployments, measurable ROI and a rapidly maturing agentic layer.

H2O.ai’s Sri Ambati and Dell’s Satish Iyer discuss specialized AI agents with theCUBE.

AI factories — purpose-built systems capable of massive token generation — are becoming a foundational pillar for modern enterprises. This shift is being driven by the need to bring powerful generative and agentic AI capabilities directly to where sensitive data lives, according to Sri Ambati (pictured, left), co-founder and chief executive officer of H2O.ai Inc.

“Agentic AI needs a lot of large models, and you can’t necessarily send all of your prompts to the public cloud,” he said. “That’s where Dell and H2O have partnered very closely. We brought sovereign AI for an airgap in regulated industries where we can absolutely give the same power that you’d otherwise get with large language models in the public clouds, completely on-prem and on your private data and public data.”

Ambati and Satish Iyer (right), vice president and chief technology officer of technology innovation and research at Dell Technologies Inc., spoke with theCUBE’s John Furrier at theCUBE + NYSE Wired: AI Factories – Data Centers of the Future event, during an exclusive broadcast on theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s livestreaming studio. They discussed how AI factories, sovereign AI and domain-specific agents are reshaping the enterprise stack from the ground up.

Sovereign infrastructure and on-prem data fuel the AI revolution

Dell has long championed a data-centric approach to AI. This ethos is particularly pertinent as organizations are increasingly choosing to run AI where their most valuable data already resides, according to Iyer.

“We have been a strong proponent of doing AI where the data resides and how H2O is adding value on that as well,” he said. “The enterprise value in AI is all about the data, and a lot of the stuff is on-prem, and I think it’s important. That’s why I think when we work with the likes of H2O, it’s important to understand that whatever you deploy, you’re tasked to be where your core asset is in terms of what your intelligence needs are.”

With over 3,000 AI factory customers, Dell is seeing strong traction across financial services, government, healthcare, telecom and other sectors where data sovereignty is non-negotiable, Iyer added. AI factories allow these organizations to run large models, small language models and vertical AI stacks without exposing sensitive workloads to public clouds.

While general-purpose agents attract the headlines, most enterprise value comes from deeply specialized, domain-driven agentic workflows. Both leaders highlight the AI revolution shifting away from large monolithic models toward smaller, purpose-built models aligned to business tasks. H2O.ai’s approach reflects this need for specialization. Their Superagent product converts complex business tasks into executable code, enabling precise and reliable automation with minimal hallucination.

“The technology is there to make your day-to-day workflows simple and streamlined, and drive more productivity,” Ambati said. “I think the way we understand it, and with what we see some of the enterprises doing, there is a core set of platforms and agentic platforms which everybody will develop on, but we see more and more domain-specific agentic tech in focus.”

Here’s the complete video interview, part of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of theCUBE + NYSE Wired: AI Factories – Data Centers of the Future event:

Photo: SiliconANGLE