Dell Technologies Global Chief Technology Officer John Roese mapped out the company’s approach to five key technology and innovation hot spots – including AI tech, edge computing, and cybersecurity – during a keynote address at the Dell Technologies Forum in Washington, D.C., on Oct. 24.
“Innovation is, interestingly enough, the act of applying technology and effort to solve a problem,” Roese said. “Innovation isn’t just an idea – it’s this idea of figuring out the answer, applying technology to it, and then ultimately making progress.”
“When we think about our industry, the challenge we have right now is that we don’t just have one area of innovation happening, or one problem,” he said. “In fact, we would frame it that there are five distinct areas all related to each other that are in a period of rapid innovation and change.”
Those five, Roese said, are AI technology, multi-cloud infrastructure, edge technology, the human aspect of proliferating AI tech, and cybersecurity.
The Dell official went on to describe challenges in each of those areas, but also offered that “from a Dell perspective, we didn’t identify these to just point out that we’re all suffering.”
“We identified them because there are good problems to go solve. And so, our vision is pretty simple. It says, ‘what if we solved all these problems?’”
AI Impact
On the AI front, Roese said, “what AI is about is rebalancing work.”
“We are trying to take the aggregate work of humanity and take a big portion of it and move it into machines,” he said. “But this time, it’s not mechanical work, it’s intellectual work. And it’s a huge opportunity and a potential disruption. By the way, if we don’t do it, we’ll probably fail because someone else will.”
Multi-Cloud Woes
On the topic of infrastructure, Roese talked about the rapid proliferation of cloud computing, and the need to optimize for multi-cloud architectures.
“As we entered the cloud era, we did a good job of embracing cloud and too good of a job because what we embraced was every infrastructure we used would have a cloud operating model, and that’s great until you have multiple infrastructures providing the capability to your enterprise and they don’t do cloud exactly the same way,” he said.
“They create silos, they create fragmentation,” he said. “So, we have this challenge of how do I turn the multiple clouds that I’m dependent on – public, private, edge, etc. – into a system, and if we don’t do that, we end up with chaos and fragmentation and complexity.”
Looking ahead, Roese asked, “what if starting with multi-cloud we can make the clouds of the world work together? [What if] data didn’t become siloed and fragmented? And quite frankly, if the systems were optimal, and it actually behaved like a platform, that would be great.”
“And wouldn’t it be great if we use that platform to power the transformation of our businesses into the AI [world] because AI does not run on magic, it runs on infrastructure, and it’s going to need that diverse complex infrastructure working as a system,” he said.
Edge Problems
“You may not know you have an edge problem yet, but you do,” Roese said in discussing the proliferation of edge computing. The problem, he said, “is that most of the forward-looking data processing that will go on in your world will not happen in a data center.”
“The reason for that is most of the data in the world that needs to be processed isn’t in the data center,” he continued. “It’s coming in through sensors and devices out in the real world in factories and hospitals and theaters. And the reality of it is we’re not exactly sure how we should instantiate IT to make that work.”
“Today we have a huge problem where everyone articulating a data pipeline or an application pipeline that includes the real world is also advocating for an edge to extend it,” he said. “So, we’re proliferating edges everywhere. And the reality is if that continues, we might end up with situations where we have dozens of edges sitting in the same retail store to solve model problems, which is not a sustainable path.”
Again, looking ahead to solutions, Roese asked, “wouldn’t it be great if that elite transformation” of infrastructure “didn’t just happen in the data center, it happened anywhere the data was, and we had a cogent way to extend it out into the edge.”
Human AI Impact
On the human impact of AI tech, Roese said, “we have to contemplate what happens to people when we move into this AI-driven future. And it’s not just about the jobs that get created, it’s about what tools they need. If you’re a developer that suddenly gets tasked from moving from cloud-native development to building large language model systems, do you have the right tools?”
“Fundamentally, we have to think about not just the producers of AI, but fast forward into the future where you are surrounded by [AI] co-pilots that are helping you do your work. What kind of computing environment do you need? What do the peripherals look like? Surely, it’s going to be different, so we have to contemplate the human in this process.”
Looking to solutions, Roese talked about that in addition to solving multi-cloud and edge infrastructure problems, “we actually provided the tools and capabilities for our workforce to develop these AI systems and use these AI outcomes in a natural way.”
‘Broken’ Security
Finally, Roese spoke about the “overarching problem” of IT security and the need to address threats more proactively.
“I’ll be very blunt,” Roese said. “I’ve been doing security for a very long time. The state of the security industry is irreparably broken. That’s it. We are perpetually reactive.”
“We have thousands of companies attempting to tread water and they’re doing a good enough job that we all haven’t collapsed yet,” Roese said. “But there is literally no one in the world that I know in the IT space that wakes up every morning saying ‘I’m great on security. I don’t have a problem. I’m not nervous about anything.’ And that is not a sustainable path for us.”
Further on the solutions front, Roese asked, “and then the bonus prize, wouldn’t it be great if at the end of this journey our security posture was better, we had a different outcome [and] we could actually sleep well at night.”
“That’s our vision,” Roese said. “If you ever wonder what we’re up to … it is to build that future. It’s not just to solve these arbitrarily … It’s a vision. It’s a journey, but we think that’s the right journey, as opposed to just perpetually reacting or dealing with technology in a vacuum.”
“These technologies are interrelated and when you bring them together you end up with potentially a better IT world and a better platform to power digital transformation and enterprises,” he said.
