AI factories are transforming how governments and enterprises operate, unlocking new levels of automation, intelligence and efficiency. From streamlining citizen services to accelerating innovation in regulated industries, AI is no longer a future vision, it is today’s imperative.
The challenges of building AI factories
Despite the promise, building and operating AI factories is complex. Organisations face hurdles such as fragmented infrastructure, a very fast rate of change of hardware and software stacks, heterogeneous GPU and CPU generations and the need for scalable, secure environments. They must also manage demands from multiple internal sources with different security, performance and segregation needs. These challenges can slow deployment, increase costs and introduce risk, especially when managing complex and sensitive workloads like agentic AI.
Nutanix: a foundational software platform for AI factories
Nutanix plays a critical role by providing a secure, scalable and efficient software platform that enables organisations to create shared inference services using the Nutanix Enterprise AI (NAI) solution, supporting freedom of choice of models and underlying hardware. The Nutanix Kubernetes Platform (NKP) provides a production-grade Kubernetes base without the complexity of building every layer, complementing AI factory solutions from hardware vendors based on NVIDIA Enterprise Reference Architectures.
Added challenges for government and security-conscious organisations
For government agencies and security-sensitive enterprises the bar is higher. Data privacy rules, FIPS encryption requirements and sovereign control over infrastructure and data add complexity. According to a 2025 US Government Accountability Office (GAO) report, 10 out of 12 federal agencies cited policy and compliance as major barriers to AI adoption.
“With Nutanix NKP and NAI, we’re helping customers bring Cisco Secure AI Factory with NVIDIA to life – delivering secure-by-default AI deployments that run on Cisco’s GPU dense servers with NVIDIA AI infrastructure and software. By simplifying Kubernetes and AI lifecycle management, Cisco and Nutanix are helping organizations move from pilot to production faster, and accelerate ROI on their AI investments” said Jeremy Foster, Senior Vice President and General Manager, Cisco Compute, Cisco.
To meet these challenges, NVIDIA introduced the AI Factory for Government reference design, a full-stack AI architecture for high-assurance environments. Built on the NVIDIA Blackwell architecture, it integrates NVIDIA-Certified Systems, NVIDIA Networking and NVIDIA AI Enterprise software with government-ready containers and open models such as NVIDIA Nemotron.
NVIDIA’s government-ready containers have been tested to run on NKP and interoperate with NAI, enabling seamless deployment of the AI Factory for Government using NKP as the Kubernetes base and NAI to build shared inference services. The joint solution delivers consistent performance, simplified operations and hardened configurations with FIPS encryption and continuous vulnerability monitoring. NKP can run on virtual machines for multi-tenant use cases or on bare metal servers. Nutanix has announced that NKP will ship Ubuntu Pro as an additional option with NKP Pro and Ultimate licences for a validated bare metal Kubernetes stack.
“Through our integration with Nutanix NKP and NAI, we’re delivering a trusted foundation that combines enterprise-grade performance with simplified Kubernetes management. This collaboration enables customers to accelerate their AI innovation with confidence. As part of the Dell AI Factory with NVIDIA, we’re helping enterprises turn AI ambition into operational reality – scaling generative AI responsibly and efficiently across their organizations” said Varun Chhabra, SVP of Infrastructure Solutions Group and Telecom Marketing at Dell Technologies.
“We’re excited to work with NVIDIA and hardware leaders to deliver a fully integrated, hardened AI factory solution tailored for government needs” said Thomas Cornely, SVP of Product Management at Nutanix: “With built-in FIPS-compliant encryption across every layer, we’re helping organizations protect sensitive data while accelerating AI adoption. By leveraging NKP and NAI, customers gain robust governance features – like fine-grained access controls, auditing, API token management and full infrastructure visibility – enabling a fast time to first token, cost control and the robust security for mission-critical AI workloads.”
Server OEMs and NVIDIA and Nutanix = complete AI factory solutions
Together with leading hardware OEMs, NVIDIA and Nutanix deliver complete AI factory solutions for enterprises and governments. These solutions combine NVIDIA AI architecture for accelerated computing, NKP for simplifying Kubernetes and NAI for scalable inference management, enabling organisations to scale AI across on-premises and hybrid cloud environments. Security and encryption span the entire design, and the flexible architecture supports future growth without model or deployment lock-in.
“Enterprises and government agencies are seeking secure, scalable AI architectures to streamline operations and solve challenges that demand both flexibility and compliance” said Justin Boitano, Vice President, Enterprise AI Products, NVIDIA: “Together, NVIDIA and Nutanix are enabling organizations to confidently deploy AI factories that accelerate innovation while meeting the highest security and regulatory standards.”
By combining NVIDIA AI Factory for Government, the Nutanix software platform and hardware with NVIDIA AI architecture, governments and enterprises can deploy scalable, secure AI solutions faster, reduce complexity and stay compliant.
“Lenovo’s Hybrid AI Advantage with NVIDIA helps bring AI to customer data – delivering productivity, agility and trust. Partnering with Nutanix allows us to offer a complete AI Factory stack in an optimized, hybrid cloud environment – from bare metal to inference. Together, we’re helping customers accelerate AI adoption with confidence and control” said Scott Tease, VP/GM, Lenovo ISG Product Group.
