Covering Scientific & Technical AI | Saturday, November 2, 2024

Accenture and NVIDIA Strengthen Partnership to Accelerate Deployment and Scaling of AI-Driven Solutions 

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As part of a blockbuster deal between two tech giants, Accenture and NVIDIA have expanded their partnership to form the NVIDIA Business Group to train 30,000 Accenture employees on NVIDIA's full AI technology stack. 

The training's goal is to equip Accenture employees with the knowledge and skills to help global clients reinvent processes and scale enterprise AI adoption. The partnership is set to bring more agentic AI systems to businesses. 

Agentic AI is a type of artificial intelligence that can act independently to achieve goals without constant human intervention. Hailed as the “next frontier” of GenAI, agentic AI systems work alongside humans to assist in decision-making and can handle even the most complex workflows. 

Unlike traditional AI, which operates within the bounds of preprogrammed instructions, agentic AI can learn, adapt, and respond to situations in real-time. According to Emergen Research, the agentic AI market is expected to be valued at $30.89 billion in 2024 and has an expected compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 31.68%.

Accenture is leveraging its current workforce while also training employees and recruiting new talent to meet the goal of 30,000 professionals for the new NVIDIA Business Group. 

The training will utilize the Accenture AI platform and several NVIDIA technologies, including the NeMo, an end-to-end cloud-native platform built for developing custom, enterprise-grade GenAI models, including large language models (LLMs), speech AI, and multimodal. 

A key component of the NVIDIA Business Group will be the Accenture AI Refinery, which uses the full NVIDIA stack including the NVIDIA Omniverse, NVIDIA AI Enterprise, and NVIDIA AI Foundry. These technologies will be leveraged to advance areas such as process reinvention, sovereign AI, and AI-powered simulation. 

The Accenture AI Refinery will be accessible on all public and private cloud platforms and will integrate seamlessly with other Accenture Business Groups to enhance AI capabilities across the SaaS and Cloud AI ecosystem, as noted in the press release. The platform will enable the development of agentic AI systems, allow for the customization of AI agents, and provide access to a variety of foundation models. 

“We are breaking significant new ground with our partnership with NVIDIA and enabling our clients to be at the forefront of using generative AI as a catalyst for reinvention,” said Julie Sweet, Chair and CEO, Accenture.

“Accenture AI Refinery will create opportunities for companies to reimagine their processes and operations, discover new ways of working, and scale AI solutions across the enterprise to help drive continuous change and create value.”

The announcement for the expanded partnership comes as GenAI demand helped drive $3 billion in Accenture bookings in the latest fiscal year. This highlights a clear market appetite for advanced AI solutions. By training Accenture employees on NVIDIA's full AI technology stack, the partnership positions the chip manufacturer to be a critical provider of essential hardware for advanced AI applications. 

"AI will supercharge enterprises to scale innovation at greater speed,” said Jensen Huang, founder and CEO, NVIDIA. “NVIDIA’s platform, Accenture’s AI Refinery, and our combined expertise will help businesses and nations accelerate this transformation to drive unprecedented productivity and growth.”

The Accenture and NVIDIA partnership aims to leverage this transformative potential by providing robust AI solutions across various industries. 

Earlier this year, Accenture initiated a new collaboration with Oracle to accelerate GenAI adoption in the financial sector and help enterprises move beyond GenAI experimentation to value realization.  These strategic partnerships reflect a broader trend in the industry as organizations strive to integrate AI solutions effectively and maintain a competitive edge in a rapidly changing market.

AIwire