Dell Technologies held a “Bringing AI to data” Asia Pacific and Japan (APJ) media briefing this week. The virtual briefing was hosted by Dell’s John Roese, Global Chief Technology Officer and Peter Marrs, President, Asia Pacific and Japan. Together, they discussed the AI landscape against the backdrop of growing demand for AI innovation in the region and how Dell is helping customers capitalize on this opportunity.

“The last time we had a dramatic change in the productivity of IT systems in business was around 20 years ago, when we adopted large scale systems like ERP and CRM that transformed how businesses used technology. While we have seen many innovative technologies over the years, none have fundamentally changed the productivity of an enterprise at that same level as AI,” said John Roese, Global Chief Technology Officer, Dell Technologies.

“AI, especially GenAI, is a huge growth area in the APJ region. It is driving fundamental change in the pace of innovation while improving the customer experience and enabling significant productivity gains,” said Peter Marrs, President, Asia Pacific and Japan, Dell Technologies. “As a leading infrastructure provider, Dell is well-positioned to serve the market in a unique and differentiated way with the world's broadest GenAI portfolio from desktop to data center to cloud.”

Dell’s four-pronged AI strategy

Roese outlined the opportunities in AI, highlighting how GenAI has democratized access to AI and underscored the need for organizations to apply this technology to provide more personalized experiences for customers and drive competitive advantage, regardless of industry. He noted that the use of GenAI also comes with challenges involving privacy requirements, protecting intellectual property, and complying with security controls.

“Our focus is on private GenAI solutions, applying AI directly to enterprise core datasets to improve process capability, productivity, and efficiency. We work with our ecosystem of partners to deliver validated designs, reference architectures, and solutions that are easy for customers to consume,” said Roese. “Our mission at Dell is not just to provide technology. It is to be the strategic partner helping customers work in a complex ecosystem to get AI into production.”

Roese shared the four pillars of Dell’s AI Strategy – AI-In, AI-On, AI-For, and AI-With. He deep-dived into Dell’s recent launch of their Dell Generative AI Solutions, which helps organizations transform how they work along every step of their GenAI journeys, and unlock the potential of AI with Dell Validated Designs for Generative AI which now support both model tuning and inferencing, allowing users to more quickly deploy GenAI models with proven infrastructure.

Capitalizing on the AI opportunity in APJ

Marrs delved into the current landscape of AI in APJ, noting the growth opportunities for the use of GenAI and increased spending on AI systems across the region. He also discussed prominent AI trends, highlighting that the region is one of the most diverse markets in the world with a wide variety of use cases that differ from country to country. Noting some key observations, Marrs shared that customers are seeking Dell’s solutions and expertise to meet different needs, such as new service providers coming to Dell for innovation to help build out their GPUaaS offerings while traditional enterprises look to address the initial pilots and inferencing requirements.

“We are excited to see the growing customer momentum for our GenAI solutions in APJ (Asia Pacific & Japan), with interest across sectors such as finance, advertising, cloud services, telecommunications, web technologies, and manufacturing. And we continue to refine our solutions and expand their use cases in collaboration with our customers, providers, and partners. One example of such a collaboration is the work we are doing with CyberAgent, a major digital advertising company in Japan. CyberAgent is leveraging our solutions to reimagine digital advertising,” said Marrs.