Highlights:

  • Characterized as a comprehensive, software-defined AI-ready solution, Nutanix introduces a platform encompassing all components required for constructing AI-prepared infrastructure.
  • Nutanix characterizes GPT-in-a-Box as a preconfigured AI infrastructure package under customer control, designed for deployment at the edge or within data centers.

Nutanix Inc., a provider of data center infrastructure, enters the generative pre-trained transformer arena with GPT-in-a-Box—a toolkit designed to securely initiate artificial intelligence and machine learning projects without going over budget.

Characterized as a comprehensive, software-defined AI-ready solution, Nutanix introduces a platform encompassing all components required for constructing AI-ready infrastructure. This package has provisions to aid enterprises in appropriately sizing and setting up hardware and software infrastructure. This ensures seamless backing for a curated range of large language models, employing well-known open-source AI and ML operations frameworks on the Nutanix Cloud Platform. Clients can acquire infrastructure tailored for AI, enabling them to refine and execute generative GPT models encompassing Large Language Models (LLMs).

Comments from Lee Caswell, Senior Vice President of Product and Solutions Marketing at Nutanix, stated, “AI applications are new and introduce performance considerations that are different from traditional applications. Hardware to develop large language models, for example, can be quite different from hardware best suited to run AI inferencing. Similarly, different AI software workflows can require different performance needs between, say, a natural language processing and a video analytics app.”

The company noted that this offering targets businesses aiming to initiate AI endeavors while harboring concerns about intellectual property, compliance, and privacy. They also face challenges in effectively supporting machine learning administrators and data scientists, along with the apprehension of potential uncontrollable cost escalation.

Security Concerns

As per McKinsey and amp; Co., the foremost obstacles deterring organizations from AI investments are cybersecurity, regulatory compliance, privacy concerns, and model explainability. Their report indicates a minimal perceived reduction in these risks since 2019. Caswell added, “There is also a consideration around large upfront AI investment costs, which can stall AI and ML initiatives. We are offering a service to help customers optimize their infrastructure with an eye to preserving data privacy, governance, and security.”

Nutanix GPT-in-a-Box is a ready-to-use customer-controlled AI infrastructure solution for edge or data center deployment that includes comprehensive security and data protection offerings.

It includes the file and object storage, cloud infrastructure provided by Nutanix, the Nutanix AHV hypervisor and Kubernetes platform with GPU acceleration provided by Nvidia Corp., services to help users size their cluster and set up open-source deep learning and MLOps frameworks, an inference server, and a curated collection of LLMs, such as Llama2, Falcon LLM, and MosaicML.

The company emphasized that data scientists can promptly utilize the provided models, integrating them into their preferred applications alongside an upgraded terminal or command-based language interface. The platform offers the capability to deploy various other GPT models, and it can also be utilized for refining models using internal data stored within the provided file and object services.