Broadcom launches VMware Cloud Foundation 9.0 to boost private AI

Broadcom has announced the general availability of VMware Cloud Foundation 9.0, a new version of its private cloud platform offering enhanced management for traditional, AI, and cloud-native applications.

The latest iteration of VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) is designed to provide a consistent operating model for private cloud deployments, supporting a range of environments including data centres, edge locations, and managed infrastructure from both service providers and hyperscalers. According to Broadcom, VCF 9.0 combines features commonly associated with public cloud—such as agility and scalability—with the security, performance, and governance advantages of on-premises solutions.

This release comes amid a shift in cloud strategies across Australia, with many organisations re-evaluating their reliance on public cloud platforms because of concerns about security, cost management, and data governance. Broadcom's Private Cloud Outlook 2025 report indicates that 67% of enterprises in the region are planning to repatriate workloads from public to private clouds, with one third already in the process of doing so.

Platform features

VCF 9.0 introduces a unified platform capable of running a range of application types—traditional, cloud-native, and AI—while maintaining consistent operations and controls. The platform is aimed at accelerating innovation by providing out-of-the-box self-service and streamlined deployment options, enabling development teams to focus on applications rather than infrastructure.

Cost control is addressed through tools delivering deep visibility into resource usage. These allow for improved planning, predictive management, and optimisation of cloud expenditure. Enhanced support for sovereignty and security includes improved compliance functionality, cyber resilience at scale, and fleet-level management for rapid patch deployment and updated security controls.

"With this next generation of our cloud platform, VMware Cloud Foundation 9.0, we are again raising the bar for the modern private cloud by vastly simplifying the deployment, operations, and developer experience of the cloud," said Krish Prasad, Senior Vice President and General Manager, VCF Division, Broadcom. "Most enterprises are now looking to the private cloud to run both traditional mission-critical and new AI and containerized applications. VMware Cloud Foundation 9.0 is the ideal platform for running these modern applications, enabling our customers to be more innovative, efficient, resilient, and secure. We are very excited to see that customers of all sizes are embracing VCF at a rate that has exceeded even our own high expectations."

Customers have highlighted the operational efficiencies provided by the latest VCF platform. Roger Joys, Principal Technology Strategy Advisor, Cloud & Data at GCI Communications, said, "VMware Cloud Foundation has enabled us to execute on our private cloud strategy by breaking down IT silos, removing technical debt, and allowing teams to shift from focusing on keeping the lights on to higher value projects that move our business forward. By delivering an 'everything as code' private cloud platform, we simply do everything faster and more securely now. Security patches are easier to implement, new applications are deployed in minutes rather than months, and services are updated and rolled out to customers in a fraction of the time. These are all benefits people only thought were possible in the public cloud. We are doing these things in our modern private cloud."

Paolo Bazzica, Chief Information Officer at IPZS, described the use of VCF at the institution: "VMware Cloud Foundation is at the core of our Digital Application Platform. Using VCF, we have expanded our on prem delivery capabilities while improving operational efficiency. At IPZS, we feel that we are now on the right track to continue supporting Italy's digital transition with a modern private cloud that enables full use of our competences to deliver cloud native applications. Compared to more traditional on-prem setup, we saw a steep IT manual tasks reduction by up to 70% through automation while improving our business resilience."

Additional feedback on the new platform came from Michael Heier, Head of Managed Workplace at Ratiodata, who noted, "With VMware Cloud Foundation, we can offer our customers a private cloud operating model from our own data centre. VCF offers a significantly more flexible and easier-to-manage IT infrastructure with its automation, advanced security features, dynamic networking capabilities, and comprehensive cloud management. VMware vSphere Kubernetes Service enables us to deliver a unified platform for both VM and containerized apps, while VMware Private AI allows us to securely harness AI capabilities across this infrastructure. Increased server performance and superior VM density will reduce our total number of servers, lowering power consumption and costs by an estimated 25–30%."

Keith Woolley, Chief Digital and Information Officer at the University of Bristol, also commented, "Previously we had a large-scale legacy IT infrastructure that needed to evolve into something that was very agile, flexible, cost-optimized and secure. With VMware Cloud Foundation, University of Bristol has built a modern private cloud that completely revolutionizes the way we operate and deliver services to our academic community. VCF enables us to run our AI jobs. It gives us the sovereignty we were seeking. And we know there's hidden benefits in the VCF platform that we're only just starting to discover."

Technological improvements

VCF 9.0 introduces a redesigned architecture aimed at reducing friction between IT administrators and application teams. Features include a single user interface for private cloud operations, the Quick Start App for streamlined setup, integrated cost management, centralized identity and access controls, consolidated log management, and advanced analytics for workload monitoring and optimisation. The update includes enhanced automation options and role-based access, aiming to simplify both administration and deployment of infrastructure resources.

Support for mixed workloads is expanded by allowing both virtual machines and containers to be managed using the embedded vSphere Kubernetes Service, allowing simplified operations and security policy enforcement across different types of applications.

Key cost management capabilities include in-depth analytics for infrastructure forecasting, dynamic resource optimisation, and automated showback and chargeback features for tracking infrastructure spend.

Security and regulatory compliance are addressed through the introduction of a SecOps dashboard and support for confidential computing features from AMD and Intel, helping organisations to deploy secure workloads across various infrastructure environments.

Advanced services and ecosystem partnerships

Broadcom is offering new and updated advanced services for the VCF platform, such as VMware Private AI Foundation with NVIDIA, VMware Live Recovery, VMware vDefend, VMware Data Services Manager, and Avi Load Balancer. These services address areas like enterprise AI, disaster recovery, threat detection, database as a service, and load balancing for cloud-native workloads.

Industry partners have commented on the launch. Raghu Nambiar, Corporate Vice President, Silicon Design Engineering, AMD, said, "AMD and VMware continue to push the boundaries of enterprise infrastructure. The latest release of VMware Cloud Foundation 9.0 builds on our shared vision to deliver solutions with great performance, exceptional total cost of ownership, and advanced security with AMD EPYCTM processors featuring SEV-SNP. Customers can confidently and efficiently scale modern workloads—from virtualization to AI—across secure hybrid cloud environments."

Brett Tanzer, Vice President, Product Management for the Azure Solutions and Ecosystem Team, stated, "Azure VMware Solution (AVS) is a fully managed VCF service that provides customers the flexibility to combine VMware Cloud Foundation private clouds with the scale and flexibility of Azure. As customers adopt the latest innovations in VMware Cloud Foundation 9.0, they will be able to take advantage of Microsoft's support for VCF license portability to extend VMware workloads to Azure as is, with minimal to no refactoring, and benefit from the continuity, scale, and fast provisioning for VMware workloads on global Azure infrastructure."

Gil Shneorson, Senior Vice President, Solutions Platform, Dell Technologies, said, "As organizations face increasing demands for data security, control and scalability, they're turning to Dell Technologies to help them easily build private cloud environments. VMware Cloud Foundation 9.0 on Dell infrastructure will deliver a private cloud solution that eliminates IT silos, reduces risk and boosts operational efficiency."

Nirav Mehta, Vice President, Product Management, Google Cloud, also commented: "Our strong partnership with Broadcom is key to delivering the latest VMware innovations on Google Cloud. With VMware Cloud Foundation 9.0, we're particularly excited about the unified interface for private cloud operations, which streamlines management, and the frictionless cloud consumption experience, which empowers both platform and development teams. We look forward to bringing these advanced capabilities and more to Google Cloud VMware Engine, further enabling our customers to accelerate innovation and optimize their cloud environments."

Rajeev Bhardwaj, Vice President and Chief Product Officer, Private Cloud and Flex Solutions, HPE, said, "As enterprises embrace hybrid operating models, IT teams are under increasing pressure to modernize infrastructure without adding complexity or compromising on security and resilience. HPE GreenLake for VMware Cloud Foundation with VCF 9.0 will offer a co-engineered, validated solution with flexible consumption, multi-layered security and pre-integrated technology—all designed to streamline an organization's private cloud journey."

Greg Ernst, CVP, Sales and Marketing Group, Intel Corporation, added, "VMware Cloud Foundation 9.0 on Intel Xeon 6 platforms brings new levels of cost optimization and advanced security to the modern private cloud. With greater hardware consolidation and Intel TDX enabling confidential computing, our mutual customers can lower total cost of ownership, enhance trust and data protection, and accelerate their AI adoption."

Stuart McRae, Executive Director and General Manager, Data Storage Solutions, Lenovo ISG, commented, "Lenovo ThinkAgile VX Series, a co-engineered solution with VMware Cloud Foundation, enables enterprises to implement a hybrid cloud environment using a turnkey solution for faster deployments, seamless lifecycle management and full-stack monitoring with Lenovo XClarity. Built on trusted Lenovo servers that are reliable and secure, this workload-ready solution is tested, optimized and validated for compliance to handle various workloads, including demanding AI projects. With VCF 9.0, Lenovo will offer customers a unified platform for all applications, blending public cloud agility with on-premises security and resilience."

John Fanelli, Vice President, Enterprise AI Software at NVIDIA, said, "Enterprises building AI factories need solutions for integrating AI into the heart of their operations. VMware Private AI Foundation with NVIDIA fast-tracks enterprise AI deployments with a secure, full-stack platform for building, customizing and running AI models, agents and applications."