Dell Technologies World: Dell Technologies and NVIDIA are collaborating on Project Helix, a new joint initiative designed to deliver generative AI to on-premises environments.

Project Helix will deliver a series of full-stack solutions with technical expertise and pre-built tools based on Dell and NVIDIA infrastructure and software. It includes a blueprint to help enterprises use their proprietary data and more easily deploy generative AI.

Dell’s vice chairman and co-COO, Jeff Clarke (pictured above, onstage at Dell Technologies World), revealed the partnership at Dell Technologies World in Las Vegas.

“Project Helix gives enterprises purpose-built AI models to more quickly and securely gain value from the immense amounts of data underused today,” he said. “Enterprises can create a new wave of generative AI solutions that can reinvent their industries.”

NVIDIA’s Jensen Huang

“We are at a historic moment, when incredible advances in generative AI are intersecting with enterprise demand to do more with less,” said Jensen Huang, founder and CEO, NVIDIA. He said Project Helix “enables enterprises to transform their business by securely using their own data to build and operate generative AI applications.”

Supporting the Complete Generative AI Life Cycle

Dell said Project Helix simplifies enterprise generative AI deployments with a combination of its hardware and software. It added that it will support the complete generative AI lifecycle – from infrastructure provisioning, modeling, training, fine-tuning, application development and deployment, to deploying inference and streamlining results.

Dell PowerEdge servers, such as the PowerEdge XE9680 and PowerEdge R760xa, are optimized to deliver performance for generative AI training and AI inferencing. The combination of Dell servers with NVIDIA H100 Tensor Core GPUs and NVIDIA Networking form the infrastructure backbone for these workloads. Customers can pair this infrastructure with unstructured data storage, including Dell PowerScale and Dell ECS Enterprise Object Storage.

With all Dell Validated Designs, customers can use the enterprise features of Dell server and storage software, with observability through Dell CloudIQ software. Project Helix also includes NVIDIA AI Enterprise software to provide tools for customers as they move through the AI lifecycle. NVIDIA AI Enterprise includes more than 100 frameworks, pretrained models and development tools. These include the NVIDIA NeMo large language model framework and NeMo Guardrails software for building generative AI chatbots.

Project Helix also includes security and privacy built into foundational components, such as Secured Component Verification.

Dell Validated Designs based on the Project Helix initiative will be available through traditional channels and APEX flexible consumption options, beginning in July 2023.

CEO Michael Dell Monday lauded the technology’s ability to transform industries but said it must be managed responsibly to mitigate risk.

Zero Trust Launch

Elsewhere at the event, the vendor unveiled a new Zero Trust solution, Project Fort Zero. The solution will be validated by the U.S. Department of Defense and is part of a Dell Security portfolio expansion.

Dell said Project Fort Zero builds on the momentum of Dell’s Zero Trust Center of Excellence and partner ecosystem to accelerate Zero Trust adoption. Fronting an ecosystem of more than 30 technology companies, Dell will deliver a validated, advanced maturity Zero Trust solution within the next 12 months.

Dell will take on the technology integration and orchestration that typically falls to individual organizations across several vendors. In doing so, the estimated time for advanced Zero Trust adoption is reduced through a private cloud, said the company.

To achieve validation, a government assessment team will evaluate the Project Fort Zero solution for advanced maturity accreditation and certify compliance against the U.S. Department of Defense Zero Trust reference architecture, which is recognized around the world.

Along with Project Fort Zero, Dell is expanding its security portfolio with Product Success Accelerator (PSX) for Backup. This is a new service to help organisations protect and recover data in the event of disruption.

Project Fort Zero will be available within the next 12 months. Dell Product Success Accelerator for Backup is now available in locations across North America, Europe and Asia Pacific. Dell Product Success Accelerator for Cyber Recovery expanded availability to locations in Europe, Latin America and Asia Pacific, in addition to North America.