Redefining AI Application Delivery

In this discussion with F5’s Ahmed Guetari and Adam Judd, we explore the collaboration between F5 and NVIDIA, which leverages the innovative capabilities of NVIDIA's BlueField-3 DPUs and F5’s BIG-IP Next platform. This partnership is set to redefine AI application delivery and security, particularly in the high-growth Indian market, by enabling better resource allocation, faster data processing, and robust security enhancements. With AI adoption surging across industries, F5 and NVIDIA's synergy brings transformative solutions for service providers and enterprises, poised to drive India’s AI-led innovation.

- Aanchal Ghatak

Could you tell us about F5's recent partnership with NVIDIA and the context behind it? Ahmed Guetari: This partnership stems from a blend of shared goals and complementary strengths. F5 has a history of supporting customers through significant industry inflexions. We saw it during the dot-com era, the rise of application delivery controllers (ADC), and the recent acceleration of digital transformation, largely due to COVID-19. Another area close to my heart is 5G deployment, which, like AI, is cloud-native.

The AI workload, though much larger in scale, is very similar to 5G's in terms of data management and efficiency needs. NVIDIA's accelerated computing platform, powered by their Data Processing Unit (DPU), needed robust software for optimized performance, which we brought with our Big-IP solutions. By modernizing Big-IP and adapting it to DPU, we're enabling more efficient deployment of AI applications, conserving energy, and allowing multitenancy, which helps customers better utilize and monetize their infrastructure.

What are the primary goals of this partnership, and how does it leverage both companies' strengths?

Ahmed Guetari: NVIDIA is a leader in AI, and they wanted to enhance their customers' success in accelerated computing. They've adopted a bestof-breed approach, working with partners who bring specialized software expertise to complement their hardware. F5's history in deploying similar applications, combined with our best-of-breed software for managing application delivery, aligns with NVIDIA's need for effective AI deployments.