Broadcom touts India's unique dual role in driving global VMware innovation

India's position as both a rapidly scaling market and a global hub for product development is pivotal to Broadcom's strategy for its VMware software division, according to Pradeep Nair, Vice President for India at the company. Speaking earlier this week on the sidelines of the VMware Explore on tour event in Mumbai, Nair highlighted how the country’s unique challenges and talent pool are pushing the boundaries of its core cloud platform.

"There's two sides to India," Nair explained. "India's market is a significant market that's growing very well. It also is a market that's technologically quite advanced." He noted that the sheer scale of the Indian market forces technological innovation, a concept he summed up with a colleague's phrase: "there's scale and then there's India's scale."

Using the State Bank of India (SBI) as an example, Nair illustrated how the VMware platform must cater to an immense spectrum of users, from low-transaction 'Jan Dhan' accounts to high-net-worth individuals, on a single, cost-effective infrastructure. "These are problems that... challenge us and that push us and make us better," he said.

Beyond being a demanding market, India serves as a critical base for Broadcom’s global operations. "We also build product out of India," Nair stated, pointing out that a significant portion of the engineering team for VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) is based in the country. "And they build this for the world, not just for India." The country is also home to a major support organisation that serves VMware’s worldwide customer base.

This dual function makes India uniquely positioned within the company. "As an entity that helps us build better products, as well as serve the world, it's unique," Nair added, noting the significant presence of Global Capability Centres (GCCs) for multinational clients who use VMware technology in India to serve their own firms across the world.

Addressing the enterprise shift towards multi-cloud environments and AI-driven workloads, Nair emphasised the role of VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) as a unified solution. He argued that without a platform like VCF, organisations would face the complexity and cost of managing three separate systems for traditional virtual machines, modern container-based applications, and new AI workloads running on GPUs.

"Many customers are saying, 'I like what VCF is doing, which is provide me one consistent platform for all of these workloads so that I have one platform team'," he said. This consolidation is helping companies break down traditional IT silos, such as separate server, storage, and network teams, into a more efficient, single platform engineering team, thereby optimising costs.

When asked about the Indian government's 'Digital India' initiative, including policies on data localisation and sovereignty, Nair saw opportunity rather than a challenge. He said these regulations play to VMware's strengths, enabling partners to build private clouds that offer full compliance with local laws without compromising on capability. The goal, he stated, is to deliver a "private cloud experience that's equivalent of a hyperscaler" while meeting stringent regulatory demands.

Reflecting on the pace of innovation since Broadcom's acquisition of VMware, Nair expressed excitement. "My technical team says the same thing. I've seen more capability come out of our engineering teams over the last 18 months than we've seen in two, three years before," he concluded. "The pace of innovation has only accelerated."