According to recent Accenture research, companies that successfully leverage AI are devoting more and more of their technology budgets toward it, and 67% of companies plan to accelerate their AI strategy. Still, for most organizations, AI deployments come with their own set of challenges. Discover the challenges of AI deployments and how Dell PowerScale can help.

What Holds Back Many AI Initiatives

One Dell Technologies expert estimates that as many as 80% of AI projects never make their way to production. It's not that less successful companies didn't start with good intentions or skilled, hard-working staff. Instead, in many cases, the infrastructure they chose to support their AI initiative has failed to keep up with their growing needs.

The following are some growing pains that companies are facing on their AI journey:

Challenge #1: Delayed Time to Market

Many AI deployments started with the best intentions. However, with the need to accommodate larger and larger amounts of data, the current infrastructure of many deployments forestalls the ability to scale. Consequently, data must be stored in pieces and moved between environments, leading to decreased model accuracy.

Solution: With up to 2.7X faster performance Dell PowerScale helps reduce the hours needed for training and analytical model testing.

Challenge #2: Data Bottlenecks

Even if high-powered GPUs are selected to perform AI processing, it's not always possible to use them to their fullest extent. That's because the GPUs sometimes need to wait while the system copies and moves data, like a high-speed train waiting to board passengers. In addition, on the front end, limited storage can slow data ingestion. As a result, despite the system needing more data to produce accurate AI models, it is limited in the amount of data it can accept, and your data science team becomes less productive.

Solution: Dell PowerScale's massive throughput powered by All-Flash storage brings 18x more bandwidth that can be added to an existing Isilon cluster. Improve your AI solution's accuracy, productivity, and ROI with decreased bottleneck slowdowns.

Challenge #3: Interconnectivity Problems

The more specific or wider-reaching the AI use case, the greater the chance the data comes in multiple formats. If the system can't immediately handle these formats, more time is required to convert the data into a usable form. Ideally, an AI storage system can work with a variety of formats:

• NFNFS
• SMB
• HTTP
• FTP
• HDFS
• S3

Solution: Start small, then scale out compute and storage as needed for your deployments. Dell PowerScale Storage is flexible and can grow with your needs.

The Consequences of AI Delays

Because of slowed deployments, the benefits of AI implementations may still need to be fully realized. As a result, organizations risk falling behind competitors while their technology, time, and expertise investments have yet to come to fruition. However, the good news is that the challenges outlined above can be addressed thanks to improved storage infrastructure from UNICOM Engineering.

The Answer to AI Scalability - Dell PowerScale Storage

Dell Technologies PowerScale is the ideal storage solution to support your AI's journey to business viability. Instead of slowing your system's operation and growth, it expands to meet your AI's growing needs with a multitude of features, including:

• 2.7x faster performance to accelerate training model cycles
• All-Flash architecture with up to 18x more bandwidth
• Compatibility with existing Isilon data clusters opening up more unstructured data than ever and maximizing current investments
• I/O Bottleneck prevention with high performance, concurrency, and scalability improvements. As a result, your AI models can be more accurate and your data science team more productive.
• Better model accuracy by allowing for datasets of up to 119 petabytes per single cluster
• Flexible deployment bundles allow you to independently start small and scale outward compute and storage elements
• Increased cyber resiliency with various data protection and security options
• Pre-validated and in-place analytics that improve the productivity of data science teams while allowing for lower-risk, faster deployments
• Validated AI designs that support NVIDIA GPU acceleration and other best-of-breed AI technologies. This includes support for NVIDIA DGX reference architectures.

Addressing Your Current AI Challenges

Given the difficulties we've discussed, it's no surprise that many AI initiatives never make it to production. However, given the latest advances from Dell Technologies, your AI infrastructure can easily catch up to the needs of your AI, allowing you to move beyond proof of concept and deliver business value.

Look to UNICOM Engineering to provide your AI data storage and systems integration expertise. As an Intel Technology Provider and Dell Technologies OEM Partner, they can supply, build, and support the best hardware to meet or exceed the needs of your application and help you bring it to market faster. Schedule a consultation today to learn more about how UNICOM Engineering can keep you moving forward on your AI journey.