What Happened This Month: June proved momentous due to moves by key players such as HPE, NVIDIA, Marvell, HPE Aruba, BT Group, ServiceNow, Lenovo, Intel, Oracle, Google Cloud, Microsoft, Dell, and Nokia. This includes HPE unveiling NVIDIA AI Computing by HPE, Marvell rights sizing AEC connections to meet AI acceleration demands, BT Group and ServiceNow expanding relationship to improve XP, Lenovo selecting Intel Xeon 6 processors to simplify AI journeys for businesses, Oracle and Google Cloud forging interconnect partnership, Nokia and Dell advancing market readiness of Nokia’s anyRAN Cloud RAN solution, and Microsoft dramatically cutting back the Azure for Operators unit.

Technology Developments

What? HPE and NVIDIA have co-developed a turnkey private cloud for AI that can enable enterprises to focus their resources on building AI use cases to increase productivity and improve business outcomes.

• Why? Through the strengthened NVIDIA alliance, HPE is preparing enterprises to architect an AI advantage that provides enduring business success by overcoming obstacles to AI optimization.
• What it means: HPE’s strategic alignment with NVIDIA signifies a clear commitment to leveraging NVIDIA’s AI software and hardware ecosystem. This partnership highlights HPE’s prioritization of the NVIDIA relationship while also collaborating alongside AI silicon and solution partners such as Intel and AMD. See my Research Note for more information.

What? Marvell expanded its Alaska A family with the debut of Marvell A 1.6T PAM4 DSP built for AECs targeted at nascent 200G/lane-based accelerated architectures. The latest addition to the Alaska A family is built on a 5nm process and uses Marvell PAM4 DSP technology to enable short-reach copper interconnect solutions that fulfill the expanding bandwidth requirements of accelerated infrastructure.

• Why? The Alaska P PCIe launch has positioned Marvell to drive PAM4 PCIe innovations throughout AI server compute fabrics. Marvell is building on more than a decade of PAM4 technology expertise exemplified by its 5nm PAM4 IP portfolio innovation prowess. This capitalizes on a major industry inflection point as compute fabrics for PCIe and CXL transition from NRZ to PAM4.
• What it means: The Alaska A 1.6T PAM4 DSP debut strengthens Marvell’s ability to ensure AI accelerators meet the demands for higher bandwidth 200G/lane interconnects underpinned by the industry-wide migration of copper interconnects from DAC to AEC. With the Alaska A debut, Marvell alongside top-tier cable providers, Amphenol, Molex, and TE Connectivity, can drive the 1.6T AEC DSP innovation critical to catalyzing short-reach AI accelerator technology and further fortify its robust presence across the data center interconnect market. See my Research Note for more information.

New Products or Services

What? HPE broadened its wireless portfolio with the launch of HPE Aruba Networking Enterprise Private 5G, targeting key industry verticals such as manufacturing, healthcare, public venues, and education, to address their intricate connectivity challenges across large and remote sites.

• Why? The HPE Aruba Networking Private 5G solution prioritizes assisting customers attain productivity and innovation gains. Such gains accord with using cost-effective, high-capacity connectivity that Wi-Fi can provide, augmenting the expansion of AI data capture and delivering capabilities for building AI data lakes and activating inference solutions.
• What it means: The HPE Aruba Networking Enterprise Private 5G solution strengthens HPE’s overall wireless value proposition by providing a unified portfolio vision for enterprises plus operators to ease the implementation and management of private cellular, Wi-Fi, wired, and SD-WAN technologies. The solution helps ready enterprises and operators to succeed in the AI era through using private 5G technology. See my Research Note for more information.

Market Developments

What? BT Group and ServiceNow expanded their strategic relationship to improve customer and workforce experiences.

• Why? The multi-year agreement will extend ServiceNow service management capabilities to all BT Group units to drive savings, efficiency, and improved customer experience. BT Group will also use ServiceNow Service Bridge for an automated connection between BT and its customers and plans to pilot ServiceNow’s Now Assist for Telecom Service Management (TSM) to power GenAI capabilities for internal and customer-facing teams.
• What it means: The deal uplifts BT’s AI credentials and validates ServiceNow’s market momentum in the CSP space, executing on ServiceNow Chairman and CEO Bill McDermott’s vision of embedding intelligence across every workflow to accelerate the digital transformation of key customers such as BT.

What? Lenovo debuted new Intel-based ThinkSystem servers that are optimized for rack density and maximize processing performance in data centers for cloud service providers (CSPs), enterprises, high-performance compute, and telcos.

• Why? With up to 3.18 times more throughput and up to 225% more cores in a 2U chassis, the Lenovo ThinkSystem SD530 V4 server provides the rack density and efficiency integral to ultra-dense processing capabilities and scaling web transactions.
• What it means: Lenovo and Intel are advancing their mutual goal of bringing AI everywhere as the new Lenovo Infrastructure Solutions V4 portfolio uses Intel 6 processor breakthroughs to accelerate performance, consolidate IT, and lower power consumption, especially across demanding AI environments. See my Research Note for more information.

What? Oracle and Google Cloud announced a partnership that gives customers the choice to combine Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) and Google Cloud technologies to help accelerate their application migrations and modernization

• Why? Oracle and Google Cloud’s new partnership is aimed at helping customers simplify cloud migration, multi-cloud deployment, and management. As a result, Google Cloud will offer OCI database services and high-speed interconnect with Oracle.
• What it means: Oracle and Google are validating their strategic commitment to assure that multi-cloud can fulfill the top priority demand of customers to have choice and flexibility. See my Research Note for more information.

What? Nokia’s anyRAN partnership with Dell is now over a year in the making to help accelerate Cloud RAN deployments. Nokia’s anyRAN proposition is built to allow operators to flexibly deploy RAN functions using cloud-native containerized software on any cloud infrastructure including public, private, or hybrid clouds.

• Why? Nokia’s software-centric approach aligns with Dell’s strengths in cloud data center solutions. Nokia and Dell have successfully completed an Open RAN trial with Vodafone Italy, alongside testing of the Cloud RAN management system.
• What it means: The alliance is ready to make tangible breakthroughs as the Nokia Cloud RAN solution is now ready for commercial deployments in H2 2024.

Other Developments

What? Microsoft reportedly cut as many as 1,500 jobs at its Azure for Operators and Mission Engineering units, as the move appears to have hit hard the teams responsible for developing network functions, moving on from its 2020 acquisitions of Metaswitch and Affirmed Networks.

• Why? The move indicates that Microsoft will ultimately look to sell or phase out its Metaswitch and Affirmed-originated telco application portfolio assets.
• What it means: Ramifications including Microsoft’s key telecom rivals such as AWS and Alianza can better target existing AfO customers as well as sharpen Microsoft’s focus on the infrastructure as a service (IaaS) side of the business. Plus, the move boosts the likelihood that future engagements will look to combine applications from telco specialists such as Ericsson and Nokia with Microsoft Azure cloud.

Disclosure: The Futurum Group is a research and advisory firm that engages or has engaged in research, analysis, and advisory services with many technology companies, including those mentioned in this article. The author is a former employee of Infleqtion and holds an equity position in the company. The author does not hold an equity position in any other company mentioned in this article.

Analysis and opinions expressed herein are specific to the analyst individually and data and other information that might have been provided for validation, not those of The Futurum Group as a whole.

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Author Information

Ron Westfall

Ron is an experienced, customer-focused research expert and analyst, with over 20 years of experience in the digital and IT transformation markets, working with businesses to drive consistent revenue and sales growth.

Ron holds a Master of Arts in Public Policy from University of Nevada — Las Vegas and a Bachelor of Arts in political science/government from William and Mary.