Dell and Microsoft integrate hybrid AI stack

The Dell-Microsoft partnership has deepened since Dell Technologies World in May, when Dell expanded its private cloud offering to deploy the latest Microsoft software. Since then, Microsoft has worked to enable a disaggregated architecture that simplifies operations across Dell PowerEdge compute, Dell PowerStore storage and Azure Local. The companies are also addressing the gap between AI experimentation and production deployment, a challenge highlighted by industry surveys. Dell's introduction of Deskside Agentic AI in May, in collaboration with Microsoft and Nvidia, provides a local environment for building and testing AI agents, reflecting concerns about token costs and cloud expenses. The partnership extends to unstructured data storage with Dell PowerScale for Microsoft Azure, which supports industries like media and entertainment and semiconductor design. Dell and Microsoft see a significant market opportunity in closing the gap between AI development and production deployment, with a focus on governance, predictable costs and measurable outcomes.