How does Broadcom feel about VMware's work with Nvidia?

The tech industry is looking for some peace of mind as the expected closing date for Broadcom‘s acquisition of VMware draws closer, especially following the release of VMware’s new private artificial intelligence (AI) platform designed to work with Nvidia chips.

During an executive Q&A session at VMware Explore 2023, CEO Raghu Raghuram explained the private AI platform released earlier this week is essentially a software stack running on hardware that contains Nvidia components along with CPUs, storage and other components that make up standard data center offerings. VMware’s OEM partners, which initially include Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE), Dell Technologies and Lenovo, will package the full solution together.

Once the offering is ready for market, customers can buy the software platform with the data center hardware through the OEMs or buy the software from VMware and the hardware from OEMs separately, “just like they do with our products today,” Raghuram said.

But what does Broadcom — a company that also produces data center chips — think about this extension of VMware’s partnership with rival chipmaker Nvidia, especially considering the market’s similar concerns during VMware’s former stints under EMC and Dell ownership?

Broadcom apparently doesn’t mind, and Raghuram pointed out VMware’s history of working with its parent company’s competitors. “We were owned by EMC for a long time, but companies like NetApp were and continue to be our best partners. We have been owned by Dell, but companies like HPE and Lenovo continue to be our best partners,” the CEO said.

To that point, “the core DNA of VMware is to work with a plethora of partners, and many of them compete with each other, regardless of our ownership,” he added. “This will continue once the acquisition by Broadcom is closed.” The $69 billion deal is expected to close at the end of October.

Raghuram also highlighted Broadcom’s pride in its operating model, which aims to let its acquired assets continue to operate as independent companies with their own business plans. “While there is another part of Broadcom that’s building chips, this part of Broadcom, [VMware], will continue to do what it always has done, which is work with the broadest ecosystem possible,” he explained.

Considering that virtualization is an abstraction of hardware, “by definition, there is no existence of VMware if you don’t have a broad hardware ecosystem,” Sumit Dhawan, president of VMware, said. “There’s no virtualization without an ecosystem.”

A major reason customers turn to VMware, Raghuram added, is that “they know if they buy or invest in a VMware stack, it will work with the chip vendors they want to work with and the systems vendors they want to work with. It’ll work with the cloud vendors they want to work with,” he said. “That’s really the core value proposition.”

Dhawan echoed the CEO’s praise of the company’s “already-established open ecosystem.” VMware’s bet on the private AI platform will “ride upon all the relationships we have,” he said. “We already have those relationships with our multicloud portfolio.”

And thanks to the modular nature of ecosystem integrations, the private AI stack “is not a brand-new thing that everyone has to do from scratch,” Dhawan added. “That’s why we feel bullish about it.”