Every technology cycle has a window to act and AI is reshaping how enterprises operate, compete and invest. The organisations that move decisively today will define the market of tomorrow. Those that wait will spend years catching up. For Dell’s partners, this is the biggest opportunity in Dell’s ecosystem’s history.
The number one ask from Dell’s partner community has been clear for years: make it easier to do business with Dell. Dell heard it and built for it.
Dell has spent the last several years addressing that challenge with Dell AI Factory with NVIDIA. This is Dell’s end-to-end foundation of AI-optimised PowerEdge servers, storage, networking, data and models, automation, and services, deployed where customers’ data lives. AI Factory provides the infrastructure backbone.
Last year, Dell partners delivered double-digit growth across every line of business, a result that reflects both the strength of Dell’s ecosystem and the size of the market Dell are competing in together. The addressable opportunity sits at $6.1 trillion, with more than $4 trillion of that delivered through partners according to Omdia’s Global IT Opportunity, November 2025.
At the same time, innovation is moving fastest in the partner ecosystem. New capabilities are emerging across model services and retrieval-augmented generation; vector and data platforms; AI observability and AIOps; security, governance and vertical applications.
How Dell and its partners are reshaping enterprise AI innovation
AI is the new enterprise operating model. The decisions organisations make in the next 12 months will define their competitive position for the next decade. Dell Technologies partners sit at the centre of a $6.1 trillion addressable market, with more than $4 trillion delivered through partners, the single largest go-to-market opportunity in the industry.
Two new incentives reward partners that lead with strategic solutions: a differentiated base rebate paying a premium on focus products and a Focus Accounts Incentive recognising performance in designated accounts.
Dell is introducing its first AI-powered partner experience, streamlining deal registration, pricing, enhanced demand signals and account management into one unified hub.
Every technology cycle has a narrow window to act. AI is actively reshaping how enterprises operate, compete and invest. The organisations that move decisively today will define the market of tomorrow. Those that wait will spend years catching up. For Dell’s partners, this is not a challenge to manage. It is the biggest opportunity in Dell’s ecosystem’s history.
As customers consolidate, they are placing bets on fewer, more strategic partners who can guide them through enterprise AI adoption, cyber resilience and cloud modernisation simultaneously. Partners who show up with the right solutions and expertise will win and retain those relationships for years. That is exactly the position Dell’s partner ecosystem is built to occupy.
Dell Technologies Partner Programme 2026
Dell’s programme enhancements, launching in August, are built around rewarding the outcomes customers expect. AI adoption, cyber resilience and cloud modernisation are no longer optional conversations. They are what every enterprise buyer is prioritising right now. Dell’s new incentives are designed to put partners at the centre of those conversations and recognise them for winning.
Partners selling solutions such as Dell Private Cloud, Dell Automation Platform, Cyber Resilience solutions, PowerStore, Z-Series networking and premium Client+ products will be eligible for a new differentiated focus product base rebate. These are the solutions at the centre of every enterprise modernisation conversation and partners who lead with them will be rewarded.
One of the most consistent pieces of feedback Dell hears is that partners should be rewarded for deepening existing customer relationships, not just landing new logos. The Focus Accounts Incentive addresses that, recognising line-of-business expansion in both named accounts and underpenetrated accounts.
Advisory and Systems Integrator partners are critical to enterprise transformation. They influence decisions long before a purchase order is written. Dell is formalising recognition of co-sell revenue, acknowledging the influence that these partners have on solutioning whether or not they transact it themselves, or work with Dell sellers directly on the final end user purchase.
Over the past several years, Dell has been on a journey to deliver a simplified, standardised and automated partner experience. Later this year, Dell is launching Dell’s first modern partner platform. It will serve as a centralised, integrated suite that connects demand signals, sales collaboration, deal registration and pricing under a single unified partner account.
This is an agentic partner experience powered by AI at every stage of the journey. It is designed to reduce friction and give time back to the things that matter, including customer relationships and revenue-generating activity.
What that experience looks like in practice:
Demand signals at scale
Dell delivered more than 200,000 demand signals to partners in FY26, predicting insights on the likelihood and timing of customer purchases and helping partners prioritise the right opportunities at the right moment.
Deal registration enhanced
Automated deal registration with approvals in minutes, not days.
Dynamic, transparent pricing
Get to the right price faster with real-time account-specific and deal-based pricing, fewer email loops and sharper quotes from the start.
AI-powered assistants
A new family of AI assistants guides partners through the full journey from next-best-action quoting to post-order support making solutioning, purchasing and account management more intuitive and self-serve.
The time saved by this platform is not just about efficiency. It is time that can be reinvested in customers, in building relationships and in the work that drives growth.
AI is creating an imperative to modernise and that imperative is arriving across every customer segment, vertical and geography simultaneously. Customers are not asking whether to modernise their infrastructure, rethink their cloud strategy or invest in cyber resilience. They are asking how fast they can do it and who they can trust to help them get there.
Partners who combine Dell’s end-to-end portfolio, supply chain advantage and global services with their own expertise and customer relationships are positioned to capture the opportunity. No other ecosystem can offer that combination at scale.
The investments Dell is announcing today in partner incentives, the partner platform and AI-powered tools are designed to make sure every partner can move quickly, compete sharply and let us fuel the future, together.
Introducing the Dell AI ecosystem programme
Artificial Intelligence has moved from pilots to board-level priority. Most enterprises now have multiple AI efforts in flight: but are still wrestling with the same hard problems: too many moving parts, too much integration work and too much uncertainty about how software, infrastructure and operations will behave in production.
At this Dell Technologies World, Dell is launching the Dell AI Ecosystem Programme: a programme that connects a broad range of AI software, platforms and applications with a formal validation and blueprinting process on Dell AI Factory.
The launch of the Dell AI Ecosystem Programme reflects a broader shift in how AI gets adopted. Enterprises are moving past isolated tools; they want repeatable, validated solutions that align infrastructure, software and operations. Partners want a clearer way to prove they are ready for those environments and reach customers with less friction.
By combining Dell AI Factory infrastructure, validation labs, structured technical criteria and reusable deployment assets, the programme creates a tighter link between innovation and implementation: helping partners build with more confidence and helping customers deploy with more certainty.
The Dell AI Ecosystem Programme is Dell’s next step in simplifying enterprise AI: anchoring partner innovation on Dell AI Factory with validated, deployment-ready solutions. For customers, it means faster, lower-risk paths from pilots to production. For ISVs, it provides a structured way to prove enterprise readiness and grow alongside Dell.
The goal is simple: help customers adopt AI solutions with greater confidence and help partners prove enterprise readiness with less friction. Enterprises no longer want AI components; they want AI outcomes.
That means:
- Solutions that solve a business or technical use case with enterprise processes in mind
- Infrastructure, data platforms, AI frameworks and domain-specific applications that work together as a system
- Clear lines of responsibility between infrastructure providers and software partners
- Proof that a solution will perform, scale and operate as required in their environment
This pace of innovation creates opportunity: but also complexity. Many organisations do not want to assemble and test an AI stack from scratch for every use case. They want validated designs, documented requirements and defined support boundaries before they move to production.
Benefits
The Dell AI Ecosystem Programme is designed to meet that need by bringing partner innovation and Dell’s AI infrastructure leadership together in a single, disciplined framework. At its core; the programme is a validation and blueprinting framework that sits on top of Dell AI Factory.
For enterprise customers, it delivers:
- A curated catalogue of validated AI solutions running on Dell AI Factory: spanning models, data and MLOps platforms, observability, cybersecurity and applications
- Reusable deployment blueprints and solution patterns that specify architecture, configuration and operations
- Clear support models, so it’s understood up front what Dell owns and what each ecosystem partner owns
For ISVs and technology partners, it provides:
- A structured path to validate solutions on Dell AI Factory, using a Dell-provided validation framework and lab environments
- Access to reference architectures, test frameworks and tooling to create enterprise-ready blueprints
- Visibility and credibility through Dell’s AI ecosystem destinations and catalogues, plus an AI Ecosystem Certified solution designation they can use in their own marketing and sales motions
To make the programme meaningful, validation focuses on concrete technical criteria rather than high-level claims.
Each participating solution is evaluated against a consistent set of parameters, including:
Compatibility
Alignment with Dell AI Factory reference architectures, deployment topology and platform requirements
Usability and manageability
Installation and upgrade paths, configuration, logging, observability and operational tooling fit
Security
Network segmentation, authentication and role-based access, secrets management and data-path protections
Reliability
High-availability options, resiliency behaviours and recovery characteristics
Validation
These criteria are captured in validation artifacts such as architectures, deployment guides and, where appropriate, Dell Automation Platform, blueprints that can automate deployment on Dell AI Factory.
Partners validate their solutions using a Dell-provided self-validation lab and framework aligned to Dell AI Factory reference configurations. They run the prescribed tests, capture results and demos and submit a validation report along with deployment assets such as architectures and guides.
Dell reviews the evidence against its enterprise-readiness criteria; if successful, the solution is approved for the programme and designated as a Self-validated Blueprint on Dell Automation Platform.
For CIOs, CTOs and heads of AI or data, the AI Ecosystem Programme is about moving from one-off projects to repeatable patterns.
Validation artifacts document support boundaries and lifecycle alignment between Dell and each partner before you go to production, not after an incident. That clarity matters when AI systems support critical business processes.
Selection
You can choose from a wide range of partners across the AI stack – models, platforms, observability, security and applications – knowing that each programme solution has been validated on Dell AI Factory against defined criteria. You keep flexibility while avoiding unproven combinations.
Instead of starting with a blank page, teams begin with pre-designed blueprints and solution patterns. That shortens pilots, simplifies deployment and improves the odds that successful pilots can be scaled across business units and geographies.
Solutions are designed to run on-premises and in controlled environments on Dell AI Factory, aligning with data sovereignty, regulatory and internal risk requirements. Using blueprinted patterns across locations reduces configuration drift and operational variability, making Day-2 operations easier.
For partners, the programme is a way to turn Dell run on Dell into evidence of enterprise readiness and scale.
Partners follow predictable steps from intake to validation to ecosystem listing. That structure makes it easier to plan engineering investment and go-to-market activity, rather than relying on one-off integrations.
Architectures, deployment guides and potential DAP blueprints provide concrete artifacts partners can bring into customer conversations to show exactly how their solution runs on Dell AI Factory.
Validated solutions can appear across Dell’s AI ecosystem destinations and catalogues, and carry an AI Ecosystem Certified solution badge. That matters in a crowded AI market where enterprises are looking for proof, not just compatibility claims.
By validating on Dell AI Factory: partners can position their offerings as part of a trusted, end-to-end enterprise AI platform, not a standalone tool.
Expanding the Dell AI ecosystem programme
Dell Technologies is expanding its portfolio of AI solutions and introducing the AI Ecosystem Programme to help organisations reliably deploy advanced AI workloads and enterprise use cases.
Many organisations see AI as the key to staying competitive, but turning pilots into production remains tough. The pace of AI innovation is relentless. New models, new frameworks and new hardware arrive almost weekly. Data keeps growing in volume and complexity. Integrating AI into existing applications and workflows can be slow and risky.
At the same time, security, compliance and governance are under more scrutiny than ever. As AI starts to touch critical workloads, leaders cannot afford blind spots around data access, model behaviour or auditability.
The AI vendor landscape is crowded and constantly shifting. Now more than ever, organisations need complete solutions from trusted partners that are validated, secure and ready for production.
Dell AI Factory with NVIDIA addresses these challenges with modular architecture, AI software, automation and a growing ecosystem of AI providers. This approach helps you confidently select the right model, platform, and deployment architecture to deliver real-world value at every stage of your AI journey.
Dell is building new AI solutions with AI technology providers. These solutions help you maintain control over data, frontier models and operations while keeping sensitive information in trusted on-premises, sovereign cloud or hybrid environments.
Organisations can connect and extract knowledge across their enterprise, define and dynamically manage relationships between data sources and optimise business operations within their own environment, on infrastructure they control.
Many organisations are pursuing a common set of AI use cases, ranging from knowledge assistants and agentic AI to computer vision immersive AI experiences, and code assistants. They want to get those into production quickly and begin operating at scale.
Dell’s AI solutions are designed to rapidly and reliably deploy these enterprise outcomes without long integration cycles. They can be implemented directly from the Dell Automation Platform catalogue, reducing average deployment time by 1 week, which is accomplished by automating more than 30 manual tasks.
1 week refers to one work week, 5 business days. Estimated average is based on end-to-end blueprint deployment time compared to manual deployment in a first-time deployment scenario, performed by users with no prior experience with the ISV solution. Based on Dell testing conducted in May 2026. Actual results will vary by organisation, configuration, customisation requirements, and other factors.
Best of all, organisations can achieve value even faster with Dell’s expert services. These services provide end-to-end expertise to deploy, configure, integrate and optimise AI solutions to reach your goals quickly at scale.
As AI becomes more critical to operations, Dell is expanding the Dell AI Factory ecosystem with security providers to offer full AI lifecycle protection and confidentiality across AI infrastructure, data, models and applications.
Organisations are shifting their focus from AI experimentation to outcomes. As a result, more leaders are demanding clear returns and faster deployments. The Dell AI Factory with NVIDIA helps turn AI potential into tangible outcomes, offering a modular architecture that grows as business needs change.
Automation, robust security and expert services remove complexity. When Dell’s AI solutions are included, organisations get end-to-end solutions that are validated and secure, so they can move from pilot to production with confidence.
To further accelerate innovation and business outcomes, the new Dell AI Ecosystem Programme provides AI software and platform providers access to Dell labs, validation tools and reference architectures. This helps partners build and optimise their solutions on Dell and gives customers more trusted, validated options for their AI stack.
Bringing cloud-grade AI models into enterprise data centres
Dell is introducing the availability of Google Gemini on Google Distributed Cloud in the second half of this year. Together, Dell and Google are bringing best-of-breed infrastructure and AI models directly to customers to help fundamentally change their business.
Unlike typical AI deployments that use usage-based tokens, Gemini on-premises uses a single, straightforward license. Once you invest, your teams can access Gemini’s full capabilities without limits, tracking or surprise costs. This all you can eat per server approach ensures organisations can tap into the true value of AI, all while being confident that their investment is predictable, sustainable and completely under their control.
Organisations in regulated industries can now run Gemini models on-premises without compromising data sovereignty, security or compliance, powered by Dell AI Factory with PowerEdge XE9780 servers and NVIDIA Blackwell GPUs.
AI in regulated industries
Organisations across finance, healthcare, manufacturing and government sectors share common constraints. Their most valuable data cannot leave the premises. Regulations like HIPAA and GDPR mean data cannot leave the safety of the building. At the same time, workloads demand real-time processing, bandwidth is not unlimited and continuity of operations is essential. These factors require AI solutions that move to where the data lives, ensuring compliance, resilience and agility without compromise.
Traditional approaches require teams to assemble custom AI stacks from open-source components, manage complex deployments and compete for scarce AI talent just to maintain basic functionality.
This creates a significant innovation gap. While public cloud users access cutting-edge models and managed services, egress fees and security concerns keep customers from fully unleashing the power of AI on their data. The result is slower decision-making, reduced competitive advantage and frustrated developers who know better solutions exist but remain out of reach.
Google Distributed Cloud and Dell Technologies change this equation by delivering fully managed AI infrastructure directly to customer data centres. Organisations can now run Gemini models locally while maintaining complete control over data residency, network policies and security protocols.
The partnership combines Google’s AI expertise with Dell’s enterprise infrastructure leadership. Dell AI Factory provides the compute foundation through PowerEdge XE9780 servers equipped with NVIDIA Blackwell GPUs and NVIDIA’s confidential computing capabilities to deliver a truly secure solution.
This infrastructure delivers the performance density required for complex AI operations while maintaining enterprise-grade reliability. The integrated platform ensures seamless lifecycle management at scale.
Customers can also leverage Dell AI Data Platform as part of the overall Dell AI Factory to harness their data on-prem. This results in a cohesive ecosystem that enables greater data organisation and control and can feed Google Gemini.
Market focus
Financial services organisations can analyse proprietary trading models and generate automated compliance reports without exposing sensitive data. Real-time fraud detection operates on local transaction streams, ensuring rapid response times and regulatory compliance.
Healthcare providers can perform HIPAA-compliant analysis of medical imaging and patient records. Research teams can accelerate drug discovery and clinical analysis while maintaining strict privacy controls within laboratory environments.
Manufacturing companies can carry out predictive maintenance powered by edge-processed IoT data. Quality control systems can perform ultra-low latency visual inspection while protecting intellectual property around design and production processes.
Software companies can generate secure code and perform vulnerability scanning on proprietary codebases without exposing source code to external services. Development teams can embed local AI features into regulated applications while maintaining complete control over the processing environment.
Getting started
Getting started requires coordination between Google Cloud representatives for Gemini subscriptions and Dell Technologies for hardware procurement. The prescribed bill of materials includes servers, racks and networking components specifically configured for AI workloads.
Hardware installation is handled by Dell Services and occurs directly in customer data centres under enterprise security standards. Google handles the complete software deployment, including the Gemini model stack, unified management interfaces and cloud integration where connectivity permits.
The managed service model means enterprise teams can focus on application development and business outcomes rather than infrastructure maintenance. Google provides ongoing updates, optimisation and support while Dell ensures hardware reliability and performance.
