Vultr announced joint Kubernetes and AI infrastructure products with SUSE and Dell Technologies aimed at organizations seeking an open stack across cloud, on-premises, and edge environments.
This package combines Vultr Cloud Compute, Bare Metal, and Cloud GPU with SUSE Rancher Prime and SUSE AI on Dell PowerEdge servers. Validated for containerized applications and AI workloads, it is aimed at customers who want more control over where their systems run and how their data is processed.
The announcement comes as companies increase spending on AI systems while facing increasing pressures around compliance, security and digital sovereignty. In response, vendors are offering alternatives to large public cloud platforms, especially for customers who require a consistent operating model across multiple environments.
platform layer
SUSE Rancher Prime is a core Kubernetes management layer that provides multi-cluster management, monitoring, and analytics. Built on Rancher Prime, SUSE AI adds support for generative AI workloads. SUSE Edge Suite and SUSE Industrial Edge are positioned for distributed deployments across industrial and enterprise sites.
Dell provides the underlying server infrastructure through its PowerEdge series and also supports Vultr’s broader cloud network. Vultr provides compute, bare metal, and GPU services that form the delivery layer of composite offers.
This stack is designed for platform engineering teams increasingly tasked with supporting both cloud-native software and AI inference on the same infrastructure. It can also be used to build in-house developer platforms based on open source and CNCF-compliant technologies.
One of the cost elements highlighted in this announcement is Vultr’s VX1 instances. The companies say customers can use this to reduce their cloud computing spend across a variety of workloads and redirect those savings toward AI infrastructure budgets such as GPUs, training datasets, and more complex AI pipelines.
push to market
The joint proposal also reflects broader changes in enterprise technology purchasing. Many large organizations want to avoid dependence on a single cloud provider while maintaining the flexibility to place sensitive data, regulated workloads, and latency-sensitive applications in specific locations.
This has led to renewed interest in sovereignty-enabled infrastructure, particularly in Europe and other markets where data processing rules and public sector procurement standards are becoming stricter. There is also an increasing demand for software layers that operate across hosted clouds, private data centers, and edge sites without requiring separate operating models.
Company relocation
Vultr bills itself as the largest privately held cloud infrastructure company and is expanding its position as an alternative provider in this space. The company announced that it has secured equity financing at a valuation of USD 3.5 billion by the end of 2024.
SUSE and Dell already have a long-standing commercial relationship spanning more than 20 years, delivering joint products across on-premises, cloud, and edge environments. Vultr’s relationship with Dell was formalized through the 2024 award, which recognized Dell’s efforts as an AI provider within the Alliance ecosystem.
Kevin Cochrane, Vultr’s chief marketing officer, explained the rationale for the company’s launch. “Open source is at the core of everything we do, and this collaboration expands on that practice,” said Kevin Cochrane, Chief Marketing Officer at Vultr. “Platform engineering teams are now required to run cloud-native applications and enterprise AI inference on the same infrastructure. Bringing together Vultr’s compute and GPU backbone, Dell’s proven server technology, SUSE’s Kubernetes and AI governance, and the platform engineering community gives these teams exactly what they need: a secure, open, high-performance foundation they can build on and trust.”
Reece Oxenham, vice president and general manager of AI at SUSE, said the integration is aimed at addressing governance and adoption concerns as well as deploying AI. “Enterprises are at a critical juncture where they must balance the rapid adoption of AI with the need for rigorous security and digital sovereignty,” said Reece Oxenham, vice president and general manager of AI at SUSE. “By integrating SUSE Rancher Prime and SUSE AI with Vultr’s high-performance infrastructure, we provide a truly open and sovereign-enabled foundation. This collaboration enables platform engineering teams to deploy and manage Kubernetes and AI workloads across any environment, from the data center to the edge, without being locked into proprietary ecosystems.”
Other industry comments included in the announcement pointed to the execution gap that many companies still face with their AI projects. “95% of teams fail to achieve results with AI. Weave Intelligence and the platform engineering community are excited to see Vultr continue to drive innovation and introduce real-world solutions that transform AI laggards into tomorrow’s AI leaders,” said Luca Galante, Managing Director, Weave Intelligence.
