This was a power-packed week for Private AI !
- At VMware Explore, Broadcom doubled down on VCF 9 with Private AI included, serious customers showed up. OpSky enters the conversation.
- Nvidia delivered strong earnings, proving private AI infrastructure demand is surging in datacenters.
- Nutanix continues to grow, riding the VMware churn with a focus on simplicity.
- OpSky has 100+ real conversations with customers and partners — validating the hunger for an AI-native, admin-first ops platform.
A new vibe at VMware Explore
While the crowd was smaller and the vendor floor less dense, the energy was unmistakable. In every session and every hallway chat, it was clear: the people who showed up are the ones ready to shape what comes next.
First-time attendees came with fresh eyes, eager to learn. Veterans returned with conviction, ready to rethink and rebuild. The VMware community cheered every person passing the tough VCF certification exam (With a cool prize!). Partners, customers, and community leaders all echoed a sense of purpose: the future of infrastructure is private, intelligent, and admin-led.
The gap left by ecosystem churn was real—but so was the clarity that remained. This was a self-selecting moment. And the signal? Stronger than ever.
Broadcom Bets on VCF 9
Broadcom is making its strategy crystal clear: everything rides on VMware Cloud Foundation 9. VCF 9 streamlines the full-stack private cloud — compute, storage, networking, and lifecycle management — but it's also becoming the new default. Core announcements included
- Defaulting to VCF as the primary delivery model
- NSX and Aria integrations getting tighter
- Push toward validated VCF partner stacks and lifecycle automation
One notable proof point: Walmart’s commitment to VCF, signaling that some of the largest enterprises are staying the course and investing in a next-gen private cloud. Interesting side note, the top three sponsors were AWS, Azure, Google - but let that not distract you from the core message.
The message? Get ready for full-stack standardization — or risk being left behind.
Nutanix Steps Into the Gap
Interestingly, this week also marked Nutanix’s earnings report — and the contrast was instructive.
While VMware repositions, Nutanix is growing. They reported strong customer acquisition (2700 new customers in a year) and revenue growth, specifically calling out wins driven by VMware churn. They're capitalizing on the moment with a clear message: simplicity, resilience, and multi-cloud optionality.
For customers feeling boxed in by VCF’s complexity, Nutanix is emerging as a serious alternative.
Nvidia Leads the Private AI Charge
Meanwhile Nvidia reported Q2 FY2026 earnings this week - a staggering data center revenue of $39 billion, up 171% year-over-year, fueled by the enterprise shift to sovereign AI and on-premise LLM infrastructure. The rough revenue split between hyperscalers and enterprise datacenters is 50-50.
“We’re seeing a broad shift among enterprises building AI factories on-prem,” Huang said. “Our data center revenue reached $39B, with strong momentum across sectors deploying sovereign AI and internal LLMs.”
It’s not just about GPUs anymore — it’s about end-to-end AI infrastructure built with security, control, and performance in mind. The enterprise datacenter is back in the spotlight, and Nvidia is setting the pace.
The Problem: Two Worlds, One Admin Team
Today’s datacenter teams are caught between two architectural realities:
- The traditional stack of mission-critical enterprise apps that require uptime, compliance, and traditional IT workflows.
- The emerging stack of AI-native workloads — LLMs, GPU clusters, Kubernetes apps, and distributed data pipelines.
Admins are now expected to manage both — often with tools that were built for neither. The result is what we’re hearing everywhere: complexity fatigue.
They’re being asked to replatform to VCF, learn NSX, adopt container-native observability, optimize GPU workloads — all while keeping existing systems stable and compliant. It’s no surprise that teams are asking for help.
Enter OpSky
Armed with the mighty business card (I still love those!), I had 100+ real conversations with customers, partners, and VMUG leaders. Several themes emerged in what enterprise customers are asking for:
- Admins loved the idea of an Integrated Datacenter Environment — a unified way to operate across vendors, platforms, and workloads.
- They love the idea of a power tool for ops and automation — a single interface to drive efficiency without sacrificing control.
- They don’t want to send sensitive infrastructure data to public cloud LLMs — privacy and sovereignty remain paramount.
- Partners have an important trusted advisor role— especially now, when many customers face a binary choice: adopt the full VCF 9 stack or migrate away.
We even saw our vision reflected in others: the VMware Hackathon winner this year built a chat-based interface for vCenter. It's a strong signal — this is what the community wants: simplicity, intent-driven workflows, and less cognitive overhead. The excitement around OpSky was both validating and energizing.
The Road Ahead
This week also marked a fun reminder: private AI is here, and its just the beginning. VCF is the battleground, AI is the opportunity. Admins are the linchpin.
The tools of the past won't cut it. New platforms must emerge — ones that unify, abstract, and elevate the work of infrastructure teams.
If you’re feeling this shift too — we’d love to stay connected.
This week wasn’t just about tech. It was about people. From old VMware colleagues to customers I hadn’t seen in years, partners we’re just getting to know, and community leaders keeping the flame alive — it was deeply meaningful to reconnect and share what we’re building at OpSky.
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