Zeus Kerravala, ZK Research | theCUBE + NYSE Wired: AI Factories - Data Centers of the Future

In this theCUBE + NYSE Wired segment from the AI Factories – Data Centers of the Future series, Zeus Kerravala, principal and chief analyst at ZK Research, joins theCUBE’s Dave Vellante to unpack why networking is the heartbeat of AI factories. Kerravala explains how AI has redefined the “unit of compute” from a single server to racks, data centers and now multi–data center fabrics – making the network the connective tissue for GPU clusters and edge data access. He breaks down scale-up (NVLink), scale-out and scale-across patterns; why both InfiniBand and Ethernet will coexist; and how purpose-built Ethernet stacks (alongside advances from vendors like Cisco Silicon One, Broadcom Tomahawk and NVIDIA Spectrum-X) are dialing up determinism and losslessness for AI workloads.

The discussion dives into pragmatic blueprints for enterprises: start with validated, turnkey designs (e.g., partnerships among Cisco, NVIDIA, Pure Storage and Arista) before customizing over time. Kerravala highlights historic data center network utilization (often 30–60%) and why rising machine-generated data, 800G today and 1TbE on deck will compress upgrade cycles to ~18 months. He assesses the competitive landscape (Cisco, NVIDIA, Arista; HPE+Juniper; OEM plays) and why power constraints could elevate innovations like co-packaged optics (and even SMRs) over the long term. On security, he argues for a zero-trust-everywhere model over appliance-centric east-west firewalls, with guardrails for LLM use and software-driven enforcement down to workloads and IoT. Closing advice for CIOs: don’t underestimate AI traffic; performance hinges on “fast storage, fast network, fast processors” moving in lockstep.

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00:00 - Intro
00:06 - The Foundations and Networks of AI Integration
02:58 - InfiniBand vs. Ethernet
08:07 - Purpose Built AI Ethernet
10:10 - Blueprint for AI Networking in Enterprises
15:27 - Network Utilization and Efficiency
19:28 - Enterprise AI and Data Center Expansion
22:16 - Navigating AI: Security, Performance, and Future Insights

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