Dell expands AI Factory with NVIDIA for enterprise use
Tue, 19th May 2026 (Today)
Dell Technologies has expanded its Dell AI Factory with NVIDIA, adding software, data tools, infrastructure and partner integrations.
More than 5,000 customers are already deploying the Dell AI Factory. The latest additions are aimed at helping enterprises move AI projects from pilot stages into wider use.
One of the central additions is Dell Deskside Agentic AI, a local system built on Dell workstations and NVIDIA NemoClaw. It is designed to let organisations build and run autonomous AI agents on devices that keep data within their own environments rather than sending it to external cloud services.
Dell is also extending support for NVIDIA OpenShell, which it describes as a secure runtime for autonomous agents, across the wider Dell AI Factory range. That support runs from Dell Pro Precision towers and Dell Pro Max systems to PowerEdge XE servers, giving customers a single path from deskside systems to larger data centre deployments.
The company is also extending its Dell-NVIDIA AI-Q 2.0 Reference Architecture with a production-ready multi-agent research workflow for regulated industries. The architecture is built on the Dell AI Data Platform with NVIDIA.
Data focus
Much of the expansion centres on data preparation and analytics. Dell has updated orchestration and search functions in the Dell AI Data Platform so customers can index billions of unstructured files and connect them to governed data pipelines for AI work.
It also introduced integrated services around the platform to address data preparation, skills shortages and operational complexity that can slow AI adoption inside businesses.
In analytics, Dell said its Dell Data Analytics Engine, powered by Starburst, now brings GPU-based SQL processing to enterprise AI workloads. The system can deliver up to six times faster query performance on NVIDIA Blackwell GPUs.
Storage changes form another part of the announcement. Dell unveiled the ObjectScale X7700 appliance, which offers up to 45% more HDD capacity than the previous generation while allowing compute and storage to scale separately. Dell also said future support for 245TB all-flash drives would more than triple ObjectScale flash density.
Dell added that its storage and search engines now integrate with NVIDIA Omniverse libraries. The move is intended to connect product lifecycle management systems and other repositories to Omniverse environments used for digital twins and AI model training.
Rack systems
On infrastructure, Dell is adding a new integrated system called PowerRack. The offering combines compute, networking and storage in a single rack-scale design, with shared thermal, power and software management.
The rollout includes rack-scale storage and networking options based on Dell Exascale storage and Dell PowerSwitch networking, all managed through the Dell Integrated Rack Controller.
Dell is also bringing PowerFlex into Dell Exascale Storage, meaning the PowerRack architecture will support block, file, object and parallel-file storage on one platform. In workstation hardware, the company introduced the Dell Pro Precision 7 R1, a 1U rack-mount workstation with NVIDIA RTX PRO Blackwell Max-Q Workstation Edition GPUs and up to 64TB of storage.
New releases of Dell Integrated Rack Controller and Dell OpenManage Enterprise provide a single control layer across integrated rack systems. Dell also launched the PowerCool CDU C7000, a rack-mount cooling distribution unit designed to support the cooling requirements of NVIDIA Vera Rubin NVL72 systems in a 4U format.
Partner network
Dell is also expanding the software and services side of the AI Factory through a new Dell AI Ecosystem Program. The programme is designed to give software suppliers a way to validate products on Dell infrastructure.
Several partnerships were included in the expansion. Dell is working with Google to bring Gemini 3 Flash models to Google Distributed Cloud on Dell PowerEdge XE9780 servers for on-premises deployments with confidential computing features.
Dell Enterprise Hub on Hugging Face is being positioned as an on-premises source for a curated set of open-weight models, including MiniMax-M2.7, DeepSeek Pro, DeepSeek-V4, GLM 5.1 and Kimi K2.6. Dell is also working with OpenAI so Codex can connect with the Dell AI Data Platform and potentially the broader Dell AI Factory.
Palantir's Foundry and AIP platform are also set to run on-premises on the Dell AI Factory using ObjectScale and PowerFlex. Reflection's open-source models are also being brought on-premises, while SpaceXAI and Dell said they will offer Grok for fully on-premises or hybrid deployments.
ServiceNow was listed among the companies whose customers will be able to use the Dell AI Factory for workflow automation tied to enterprise infrastructure. Dell also named Mistral, Fogsphere, Ipsotek, UneeQ and Poolside among providers with validated AI solutions available through the Dell Automation Platform catalogue.
Security suppliers CrowdStrike, Fortanix and F5 are part of a wider set of security services around the platform, while JFrog is working with Dell on a central repository for managing AI models, MCPs, agent skills and software artefacts.
Michael Dell, chairman and chief executive of Dell Technologies, said the changes are aimed at helping customers build AI systems on infrastructure they control. "With the advent of Agentic AI, every organisation now faces the same challenge to turn intelligence into impact at speed or become obsolete. At Dell Technologies, we're helping customers turn their data into AI fuel on infrastructure they control with security, governance and cost efficiency," he said.
Jensen Huang, founder and CEO of NVIDIA, linked the expansion to growing enterprise demand for AI systems that can move from desktop hardware to data centre deployments. "Agentic AI has arrived - enterprise AI adoption is going parabolic. Dell and NVIDIA are building the full-stack AI factory for this moment, with accelerated computing, networking, storage, software and services that scale from the desktop to the data centre - turning AI's potential into unprecedented productivity for enterprises everywhere," he said.