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The buzz around AI is electric, isn't it? Every day seems to bring a new wave of groundbreaking advancements, new tools and transformative possibilities. It's an exhilarating time, but also one filled with questions about the future and how businesses can best position themselves to capitalize on this rapidly evolving landscape.

As a platform company, Red Hat has always prioritized building a robust, skilled partner ecosystem to help empower organizations with the solutions, services and support they need to adapt and thrive in times of change. Imagine embarking on your AI journey knowing that the platform you choose today can support the cutting-edge innovations of tomorrow. With Red Hat, that's not just a possibility – it's the reality. Our vibrant and constantly expanding partner ecosystem means you can embrace the latest and greatest AI technologies without having to rip and replace your foundational platform.

Think of it: the only decision you make in your AI journey that you won't have to revisit – because our platforms, built on the bedrock of open source and surrounded by thousands of partners, are designed to be the stable, agile foundation upon which your AI future is built. Spanning thousands of certified partner solutions and applications on Red Hat Enterprise Linux, over 200 partner applications certified for Red Hat OpenShift and compatible with Red Hat OpenShift AI, and rapid momentum with partners supporting Red Hat OpenShift Virtualization, Red Hat continues to forge a partner ecosystem built on trust and reliability to fuel real-world business outcomes for customers. 

Last year, you heard us make a clear signal to the market: the future of AI is open source. Now, we are seeing this come to life through Red Hat’s global partner ecosystem. Together with our partners, we can  bridge the IT needs of today with the opportunities of tomorrow. Whether it’s modernizing virtualized infrastructure to support future AI workloads or co-creating new solutions using Red Hat AI, Red Hat partners remain at the forefront of innovation as a critical catalyst for customer success. 

This week, we made several ecosystem-driven announcements to help address the most pressing demand for AI: Inference. AI in production is directly tied to inference. This is how you get results with AI.  Inference is the true driver behind “what’s next” when it comes to areas like agentic AI and multi-step problem solving, but this requires enhanced collaboration to ensure maximum efficiency. 

With the introduction of the llm-d project and our deep contributions to vLLM, Red Hat is bringing together a highly skilled set of partners to enable AI on any model, any accelerator and any cloud, for greater cost efficiency and flexibility. Furthermore, Red Hat introduced Red Hat AI Inference Server as the enterprise-grade distribution of vLLM. Partners like AMD, Cisco, Google Cloud, Intel, NVIDIA and more are already rallying behind vLLM, llm-d and Red Hat AI Inference Server to bring upstream innovation directly into the hands of customers. 

So, what does this mean for the broader Red Hat partner ecosystem? We are providing the container-native foundation for partners to build, deploy and co-sell vLLM solutions, fueled by tight collaborations with model providers such as Google Cloud, Lambda, Meta and Mistral AI. This also opens the door for optimized hardware acceleration and integrations with independent software vendors (ISVs) to propel model serving and tooling for even more tailored, optimized AI solutions. Finally, Red Hat’s value-add resellers (VARs), distributors and service providers deliver that last piece of the puzzle, with comprehensive enablement and expertise for customers to bring AI to life for their business. 

Together, we can unlock the full potential of generative AI. 


About the author

Stefanie Chiras is Senior Vice President of Partner Ecosystem Success at Red Hat, leading Red Hat’s global partner ecosystem engagement, and plays a critical role in increasing the understanding of the value of Red Hat's product portfolio within the ecosystem, defining the strategy for partnering with Red Hat for customer success. 

Prior to joining Red Hat in 2018, Chiras served as Vice President of Offering Management at IBM Cognitive Systems. As part of the Cognitive Systems brand team, she led worldwide business for the systems and software portfolios, AIX, IBM i, Linux, and the cloud stack. She has extensive experience in both business and technology, including technical roles that range from silicon technology to system architecture.

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