Dell Technologies World 2025: Day One (AI, more AI, RAN and a smart telco engagement strategy)

Author: Peter Jarich, Head of GSMA Intelligence

London has been unusually warm of late, but still no match for Las Vegas this week. That said, there’s no time for outdoor activities or lounging by the pool since I’m here for Dell Technologies World 2025. 

Compared with massive industry get-togethers like MWC, single company events are a very different beast. You obviously get a more single-sided view of the market. But company positioning and strategies can also tell you a lot. With Day One in the books, here’s what I came away with. 

• Keynotes, Agendas, Announcements, and AI. Conference content and sessions often get ignored in favour of non-stop meetings. At an event driven by customer engagement, you might expect this to be the case. And, if you were one of those people locked in meetings at Dell Technologies World, take solace in the fact that product and solution announcements tell you where a company is putting its attention. Not surprisingly, that attention has landed on AI, as showcased by its Dell AI Factory enhancements and new solutions with NVIDIA. Circa 2025, nearly every tech company needs shareholders and customers to know it’s focused on AI innovation. A solution ticking all the key boxes – servers, mobile workstations, data platforms, and professional services…backed by a deep partner roster – testifies to the focus.

   

• Edge AI in Practice. AI is a wide-ranging topic. An incredibly wide-ranging topic. This is good, to the extent that it means solutions are being built for a variety of diverse use cases and customer demands. It also means that putting AI to use may seem particularly daunting. For me, a showcase on AI in support of healthcare inventory management, backed by machine vision specialist Chooch, brought it down to earth with a real-world example. In the process it also highlighted the importance of edge-deployed AI (in order to address data privacy and cost concerns) as well as the reality that putting AI to use requires much more than AI applications, making system integrator, telco, and IT partner decisions key. 

   

• The Telco Suite. Executive suites for hosting meetings or demoing kit in a (less noisy) space off the show floor are not uncommon at trade shows. Dell’s Telco-focused suite at Dell Technologies World serves the same purpose. But it’s also used to host presentations and intimate discussions with partners from non-telco verticals. Where operators have been targeting digital industries as a growth opportunity since before the 5G Era, attempting to be a bridge into the enterprise is an undeniably smart strategy. 

   

• The RAN Solution you Might Not Know. One piece of kit on display in Dell’s Telco Suite is a 4T4R cellular radio. It’s not from a partner and it’s not a mock-up. It is a commercially available radio developed by Dell. It can be paired up with Dell servers running Dell’s own RAN software. Add in mobile core assets from a partner and the result is a complete miobile network. Unless you follow the company closely, you probably don’t know about this offer; it never got a press release or a flashy launch. It points to modest near-term RAN aspirations and a cautious approach to competing with current RAN partners. It also provides a reminder that as the RAN gets increasingly digitized, suppliers like Dell should be in a position to benefit.