Nvidia growing channel business as AI hits the datacentre

Nvidia has been building a brand in the datacentre space and a channel base over the past few years and is working to get the message out that is a major force in AI.

Three years ago the firm began building a channel programme and 12 months ago Richard Jackson took on the EMEA vp of channel and partner organisation at Nvidia to increase the number of partners that were taking its GPUs out to market.

A lot of the heavy lifting has been done with relationships struck with major resellers, distributors, SIs and developers already made. But there is an ongoing challenge getting Nvidia established as a brand in the datacentre.

Key to that ambition is riding the growth of interest in AI, which the firm identified as a major growth area and has ploughed investments into over the past few years.

"This is an incredibly exciting time and we haven't seen growth like this for a long time," Jackson said of the impact of AI "One of the fastest growing parts of the business is the datacentre revenue."

"We have got to keep building our ecosystem and the success of Nvidia is building the whole ecosystem so that the channel can see us as a strategic partner that can help them grow their business," he added.

Nvidia has made sure that it has struck up relationships with hundreds of emerging AI players to ensure their apps run on its platform. There are also upsale opportunities around storage and other services that the channel can add into a datacentre sale.

AI is one of the technologies that the channel has been alerted to as a future growth area but Jackson accepted that there was some onus on vendors to support partners trying to make revenues in that space.

The firm has put together some sale playbooks around some of the vertical markets that are embracing AI, including health, and is helping the channel put together the right sales pitch.

"A partner might go and talk to the IT guy but this is more of a business play and it involves a different approach," he said.