Looking to the future @ Dell Technologies

At the recently held Dell Technologies Summit in Austin, USA, there were a lot of interesting discussions, ranging from how 5G will transform industries, to, building an autonomous future, IT and power of compute in the next decade, and so on.

5G will transform industries

Jen Felch, CIO and Chief Digital Officer, Dell Technologies, and Shekar Ayyar, Executive VP, Strategy and Corporate Development & GM, Telco NFV Group, VMWare, were involved in a discussion around 5G and how it can transform industries.

Ayyar said that 5G will transform the industry. In fact, with the radio infrastructure disaggregation, 5G will help industries transform themselves. Felch added that the opportunities for social impact are enormous. They will help extend the reach. 5G and IoT will help achieve these.

Ayyar added that 5G will enable a number of new edge clouds. There needs to be consistent and cohesive management of private, public, telco clouds, etc. Felch agreed, stating that Dell is preparing for all of this. The ramp is going to be steep.

There will be further opportunities to analyze these. The corporate is also looking at our network and deploying SD-WAN. Like, our customers and a legacy of infrastructure. We also get to use great technologies developed at Dell.

Building an autonomous future

John Roese, President and CTO, Products & Operations, Dell Technologies, noted that the future is where data will flow across various systems. AI-powered experiences are going to make our lives better. We are going to need a stronger application revolution to unlock the new data era. We are also going to see a lot of automation.

Cars will be the first zeta scale private infrastructures of the world. We have the data. We work with global companies. There should be 40 million autonomous vehicles around, and will probably need 7ZB of data. We realize that compute, storage, etc., should become cheaper. There will be 1 million storage admins. We are seeing all of this in 5G, infrastructure, healthcare, etc.

We are looking at building an autonomous future. We have to focus on standardization, orchestration and autonomous environments. Automation emerges when the orchestration is well done. We are focused on three things - multi-cloud operational hub, AI-driven automation, and the automated infrastructure that are available everywhere. We need to have the best-in-class products. We have now introduced the Dell EMC PowerOne autonomous infrastructure to make deploying, managing and consuming IT easier for organizations.

Imagine being able to do things with a highly intelligent system. Management is done via automation. There is compute, network and storage to follow. We made our products smart. We have a new automation controller in PowerOne. For eg., there will be 98% reduction in manufacturing tasks. It creates new, efficient pools of reliability. You can now understand your portfolio. It also helps in sustainability.

We also have this goal of one-to-one recycling. Our customers are the owners of the next data decade where they will disrupt their industries in a major way. Our job is to ensure that nothing stops them from reaching their goals.

Dell Technologies on demand

Jeff Clarke, Vice Chairman, Dell Technologies, announced Dell Technologies on demand. It is a set of consumption-based and as-a-service offerings on the industry’s broadest infrastructure portfolio that deliver IT with the agility of the cloud, and the control, performance and predictability of the on-premises infrastructure.

As part of this new offering, Dell is also expanding its extensive flexible consumption portfolio to support Dell EMC PowerEdge servers and the new Dell EMC PowerOne autonomous infrastructure system.

Clarke said that there will be flexible consumption. It supports pay as you grow, and flex on demand. This will also enhance the data center utility. It offers ProSupport - the AI- and ML-based support. ProDeploy accelerates technology deployment in the enterprises, and accelerates client and infrastructure managed services. Dell is providing value-added services with ProDeploy, ProSupport and Managed Services. They can be bundled effortlessly and paired with all the financial consumption models, bringing a tailored as-a-service experience.

“The multi-cloud world is here and will only grow, which means customers need on-demand and consistent infrastructure that yield predictable outcomes across all of their clouds, data centers and edge locations,” said Jeff Clarke. “On Demand makes it possible for organizations to plan, deploy and manage their entire IT footprint. They can choose how they consume and pay for IT solutions that meet their needs with the freedom and flexibility to evolve as their needs change over time.”

Dell Technologies is also providing the unified workspace, encompassing edge, cloud, servers, storage, data protection and cloud. Dell is poised to help customers unlock the full potential of data.

Dell's 2030 goals

Speaking on the 2030 goals, Karen Quintos, Chief Customer Officer, Dell Technologies, said: “We create technologies that drive human progress. About 104 million plastic waste could enter the ecosystem by 2030. Next, 50% of the world’s population still lacks healthcare. Further, 1.1 million computing-related jobs openings will be available in 2024. However, only 45% of the talent pool is available.

“We have made real progress at Dell. 76% millennials consider a company's social and environmental commitment as important. Dell is well positioned to do so. We have achieved 100mn pounds of sustainable materials in our products by 2020. We have our moonshot goals: advanced sustainability, cultivate inclusion, transforming lives, and upholding ethics and privacy.

David Lear, VP Sustainabiity, Dell Technologies, added: “We developed lots of standards, in materials and packaging, etc. We met several social impact milestones. In 2014, we launched a certified closed loop plastics supply chain. We became founding member of the Reboot Representation Tech Coalition in 2018. In 2018, we also created the closed-loop process for rare earth magnets.

“We have 2030 moonshot goals. For every product a customer buys, we will reuse or recycle an equivalent product. 100% of our packaging will be made from recycled or renewable material. More than half of our product content will be made from recycled or renewable material.

“We recognize there are other products that influence energy intensity! We will reduce the energy intensity of our entire product portfolio by 80% (2011-2020). We will partner with our direct material suppliers. As of now, 2 million pounds of carbon fiber is kept out of landfills.”

Women power

Brian Reaves, Chief Diversity & Inclusion Officer, Dell Technologies, noted: “By 2030, 50% of our global workforce, and 40% of our global leaders will be women. Workforce diversity is an essential part of Dell's commitment to quality and future.

By 2030, there will be potential tech labor shortage of 4.3 million. By 2024, 1.1 million computing-related job openings will be in the USA. Only 45% of these jobs can be filled based on the current US graduation rates. We have programs that can identify talent. We work with schools to change the curriculum.” Dell is working with institutions on AI, ML, design thinking, digital future, etc.

In the next 10 years, Dell can diversify from a gender perspective. “By 2030, 95% of our employees will participate in the annual foundation learning on key topics such as unconscious bias, harassment, micro aggression and privilege. Each year, through 2030, 50% of the people empowered by our social and educational initiatives will be women.”

IT in next decade

Discussing IT in the next decade, Jeremy Ford, VP of Giving & Social Innovation, Dell Technologies said: “With our technology and scale, we will advance health, education and economic opportunity initiatives to deliver enduring results for 1 billion people by 2030. By 2030, we will use our expertise and technology to help 1,000 nonprofit partners digitally transform to better serve their communities.

Sooji Seo, Chief Privacy Officer, Dell Technologies, noted: “By 2030, we will fully automate our data control processes, making it easier for customers to control their personal data. By 2030, 100% of our employees will demonstrate their commitment to our values criteria. By 2030, 100% of direct partners we do business with, will demonstrate their commitment to our values. Imagine an innovative digital transformation dashboard 10 years from now! The bottom-line is: our team trusts us with our data.”

Ford added: “We see a better healthcare through data. There will be high performance computing. It will be unlocking the data in our bodies. It will find more effective treatments and faster answers. We are only scratching the surface. We are doing partnerships on a global scale. This is allowing Dell to work with customers and governments to bring medical treatments to rural populations.”

David Lear, VP of Sustainability, added: “We aim to reduce the energy intensity of our product portfolio by 80% by 2020. Partners with suppliers will meet a greenhouse gas emissions reduction target of 60% per unit revenue by 2030.”

Power of compute in next decade

Bill Wavro, President, Dell Financial Services, Dell Technologies, noted: “With on demand, we are offering the industry's broadest portfolio of consumption-based and as-a-service solutions ideally suited for the way on-premises infrastructure and services are consumed in today's on-demand economy.

Dell Technologies’ on demand offering is unique as it has a dual-delivery model. It allows customers to decide what they want to do. It also allows customers to choose what works best for them. From a CIO perspective, they now have access to technology almost immediately.”

“We have wide ranging consumption models. We have integrated full stack solutions. We have the leading end-to-end portfolio. It is all about giving the choice to the customer. Flex on demand allows you to process data, and have that data, as and when you need it. By 2022, 15% of our customers will be using this.”

Speaking about PowerOne, Tom Burns, SVP/GM, Networking & Solutions, Dell Technologies, said that it offers autonomous operations, flexible consumption and is an all-in-one system. It is the one system to harness the power of Dell Technologies. It brings together traditional IT with future-ready cloud. We are focused on helping customers via intelligent automation.

Next data decade

Sam Burd, President, Clients Solutions Group, Dell Technologies said, “We took 2 million pounds of technology back, and recycled it.

Darrell Ward, SVP, Client Product Group, Dell Technologies, added that the way we consume data or content, is making advances over performance, connectivity, etc. From a utility, devices become our companions. AI means how devices becomes an extension of the user. Dell's unified workspace creates a modern IT environment. Maybe, by the next decade, we will call them laptop shows, as viewing is very much higher on laptops.

Meghna Patwardhan. VP, Commercial Mobility Group, Dell Technologies, said: “We are going to make devices more accessible and sustainable. We will continue to push for more intelligent, sustainable and better products in future. There are four big things that we invested in Dell Latitude. We also worked with a company to reclaim more carbon fiber. We scaled and opened up the process to the entire industry. The paint used is low emission paints. 93% of the packaging comes from renewable energy.”

CTO dialogue

John Roese, President & Global CTO, Products & Operations, Dell Technologies, closed out the Summit with a CTO dialogue, featuring Dr. Zulfikar Ramzan, CTO, RSA, and Michael J. Morton, CTO, Dell Boomi.

On infrastructure, where does data come and go from? How does the data topology look like? Boomi said: “What's going on with policy, to look at the topology? It's data privacy. You start thinking about solutions in your topology. Policy is going to significantly shape data. Trust is very important. Did it come from a secure edge point? A chief trust officer needs to tell the company whether they can trust the data coming to them. Data privacy and trust are going to be key, moving forward.”

Rahman noted that data made from corrupted data can be flawed. It becomes important to measure and care about security in the coming decade. How can you stop corrupted data?

Roese added that quantum computing is another interesting area. Computing power became stronger and stronger over the years? What game can an AI beat you at?

“We are now way beyond Go and massive online games. We need to build user experiences into building data. We looked at visualization in AI. The trust part of the equation needs to be solved. Empathetic AI is an area that needs to be looked at as well. AI is generally working based on the data given to it, and not on your emotions, voice stress detection, etc. We expect complexities to materialize. We need a symbiotic relationship with AI.”

Boomi added: “There are companies who steal your data, and even score you, based on your data. How do you expose or get the algorithm where they have got your data from? The data model is the model of security.”

Roese said there is a lot of data privacy laws that need to be in place. Eg., California's laws are going to be in place, which are different from the others. GDPR is a good example that we learned from. It will evolve and most of the issues will get resolved.