AI Factory gives view of the future at Dell Technologies Forum

Managing director of Dell Ireland Jason Ward highlights how the company is helping Irish enterprises develop their cyber resiliency and implement AI

Pro

Jason Ward, Dell Technologies Ireland

The Dell Technologies Forum, which takes place in Dublin on 23 September and around the world through in-person, digital and live streaming events, is where IT professionals can get hands-on with the latest technologies from Dell. At the Dublin event in the Royal Dublin Society attendees can expect to see the full range of Dell’s solutions with a particular emphasis on AI.

“We’ll have the full showcase of all Dell’s solutions around AI, from modernising data centres and modernising the workplace to modernising your security posture,” explains Jason Ward, managing director of Dell Ireland, who will speaking on the day. “People will be able to touch and feel products and get to see what the solutions look like.”

Also at the event will be some of Dell’s partners including Nvidia, which Dell has partnered with on its AI Factory. “Our AI Factory is validated infrastructure that enables any organisation, whether it’s a bank, a pharmaceutical company, or a healthcare company, to build and deploy an AI platform that enables them to take their own data and then use AI tools and large language models (LLMs) to inference against that data in a sovereign, proprietary way on-prem to deliver commercial value.”

The key here is on-prem. It means organisations can keep their proprietary data secure and under their direct control. “If you’re an organisation, your data is your crown jewels. What we’re doing with AI Factory is providing an infrastructure where you can build out your AI environments either in your data centre or in your premises. And you can then manipulate an inference with your data on premise in a very secure environment, in a validated stack that’s fully protected, and is built to do specific tasks.”

In this way, Ward explains, organisations can avoid uploading sensitive information to external cloud environments, which helps protect their intellectual property and also ensures compliance with data privacy requirements. 

Data safeguarding will be front and centre at the event. Ward explains that while perimeter-based security is important, it’s how organisations are protecting their data that will dictate how they recover from a cyber attack. 

“A lot of these bad actors will invariably get into your business. They’re going to get into your networks, going to get onto your systems, and most likely, they’re already there, right? Perimeter-based security is important. But what happens when your data is compromised, or your networks turned off, or your production systems go down?”

Data protection methods like off-site data storage or backups are common, but what if that data is already compromised, says Ward. “If the data that you protect and store in these environments happens to be compromised or impacted with a virus that you’re not aware of, then this is a major issue.” 

Dell experts will be on hand to illustrate how Irish organisations can protect their data efficiently. “We’ll be showcasing Cyber Vault, a highly resilient, protected environment where a data backup is stored away from your production environment.”

Ward notes that with all the innovation happening in technology right now, there are huge savings to be made in areas like data centres, legacy hardware, and business processes: “We will be on hand to talk about how businesses can digitally transform their business, how they can modernise their data centres, and how they can develop better secure posture for their business environments as they move through the next couple of years.”

“Exertis Ireland is proud to be a Platinum Sponsor at this year’s Dell Tech Forum, reflecting our strong partnership with Dell and our shared commitment to bringing innovative technology solutions to customers across Ireland,” says Vincent O’Brien, Dell business manager, Exertis Ireland.