VMware adds to AI 'jump ball' effect with Tanzu upgrades
Broadcom's virtualization software business is fortifying its Tanzu offerings with a focus on AI and security.
LAS VEGAS -- VMware on Tuesday launched Tanzu Data Intelligence and Tanzu Platform 10.3, products that offer data accessibility for agentic AI and other uses along with accelerated generative AI adoption for enterprise applications.
During its Explore 2025 event this week, VMware showcased Data Intelligence, a data lakehouse platform that offers Tanzu users unified, low-latency access to multimodal data to push faster, secure analytics, applications and agentic AI.
The vendor touted its Tanzu Platform 10.3, updated from 2024's Platform 10 release, which will arm developers with new tools to integrate generative AI capabilities along with observability functions.
With Tanzu, Broadcom's VMware struggles in the Kubernetes market against larger competitors including Docker and Google Kubernetes Engine. In the PaaS landscape, where it holds just a small fraction of the market, Tanzu faces a crowded field of entrenched competitors.
But creating valuable AI-minded services could help it, according to Steven Dickens, CEO and principal analyst at HyperFrame Research.
"Adding the AI stuff just makes sense. It's very 2025," Dickens said. "They've got a harder lift with Tanzu given its market position. The base will be very convinced -- the diehards that have been VMware-certified forever -- but it's going to be a hard lift with the space for the Kubernetes market."
Purnima Padmanabhan, vice president and general manager of Broadcom's Tanzu division, said the product updates were based on enterprise demand for more AI integration and security.
"We are seeing that AI specifically has really created a jump ball effect, where most of my customers are now re-evaluating and looking at their application and data stacks … to capitalize on AI and incorporate AI. And the transformation is pretty dramatic across the stack," she said during a press call Thursday. "The winners in enterprise are the ones who are able to converge and look at their app, data and AI as an integrated stack with complete common safety and governance."
Tanzu Data Intelligence features
VMware said Tanzu Data Intelligence offers unified and quick access to structured and unstructured data, whether native or federated, with the ability to scale up to petabytes with millisecond latency.
The platform includes several components to support data and AI applications, including ingestion and workflow orchestration, federated query services, container compute services, real-time data services and advanced analytics for generative AI-powered applications.
"The Data Intelligence platform, at its heart, allows you to bring all your data together, whether it is structured or unstructured, whether it is in the platform or whether it is federated," Padmanabhan said.
Tanzu Platform 10.3 gains
Broadcom also unveiled the latest version of VMware's AI application development platform. The company said Tanzu Platform 10.3 will offer better operational control with visibility and observability dashboards. The company's PaaS model will work with the company's VMware Cloud Foundation.
Platform 10.3 will now offer service publishing in the Tanzu Platform Marketplace, granular AI model service plans, automated modernization for existing applications, security insights with a new vulnerability dashboard and integrated data services observability.
"Platform … is an end-to-end solution that allows you to develop and deploy applications very fast," Padmanabhan said. "What we have done is made it even easier for developers to collaborate by self-publishing applications. Now, agents built by one team can be used by another team."
To help platform teams build AI apps quickly, VMware also created an AI Starter Kit for Tanzu Platform. The kit will include tooling and custom code for AI services, as well as how-to guides for setting up small foundations to deploy a first AI application.
Shane Snider, a veteran journalist with more than 20 years of experience, covers IT infrastructure at Informa TechTarget.
