Domino Data Lab Allies With TCS, Nvidia To Develop Advanced Computing Managed Service

Domino’s MLOps software will serve as the front end of a new high performance computing service Tata Consulting Service has launched based on Nvidia DGX hardware.

Domino Data Lab has formed a strategic alliance with global IT services giant Tata Consulting Services and chipmaker Nvidia through which TCS will incorporate Domino’s data science and machine learning software as part of a TCS high-performance managed services platform running on Nvidia DGX systems.

The new TCS fully managed service, announced at Nvidia’s GTC virtual conference this week where Domino is a diamond sponsor, will extend the market reach for both Domino and Nvidia into applications that require high performance computing and machine learning/data science capabilities.

TCS “sees large demands from companies that have a lot of traditional high-performance computing [HPC] workloads that need to migrate to more modern data science, machine learning and AI capabilities,” said Thomas Robinson, vice president of strategic partnerships and corporate development at Domino, in an interview with CRN:

[Related: Domino Data Lab Launches Inaugural Program Targeting Service, Technology Providers]

Domino Data Lab, founded in 2013 and based in San Francisco, develops the Domino Enterprise MLOps Platform that businesses and organizations use to manage the development and deployment of machine learning and data science models.

Domino has had a partnership with Nvidia since last year, providing its MLOps software certified for Nvidia DGX systems as part of the Nvidia DGX-Ready Software program.

Last month Domino, in addition to raising $100 million in a Series F round of financing, announced an expansion of that partnership with Nvidia with plans to further combine their products – including integrating Domino’s software with the Nvidia AI Enterprise software suite – and expanding joint sales efforts for their products.

Robinson said Domino was introduced to TCS by Nvidia, leading to the three-way development efforts and the Domino-TCS OEM deal.

The result is the “TCS High Performance Computing Accelerated AI & Analytics” or “TCS HPC A3” solution, which the companies describe as a converged, managed service, based on Nvidia DGX systems, that uses Domino’s MLOps software as a front-end for training AI, ML and deep learning models in the same heterogeneous compute environments as HPC simulation workloads.

Using TCS HPC A3, “data scientists can leverage output data from CPU-accelerated containerized simulation workloads to train NVIDIA GPU-accelerated ML models, or vice versa, without having to move data across two traditionally siloed environments,” the companies said in a detailed description of the new offering. “With a single pane of glass, data science leaders can use this solution to track project status across teams, while IT can track infrastructure utilization for capacity planning.”

The managed service, which the companies said is now available running in the TCS Enterprise Cloud, will particularly target HPC applications in the retail, oil and gas, and pharmaceutical industries, according to Robinson.

“The most difficult challenges in industries like life sciences and manufacturing can be solved by efficiently leveraging the proliferation of data from connected devices, and by converging simulation, analytics, and AI/ML workloads in a single environment,” said Revati Kulkarni, technology head, HPC, AI Group at TCS, in a statement. “TCS’s HPC A3 solution uses Domino‘s capabilities to seamlessly manage heterogeneous compute across complex datasets and helps customers accelerate their transformation journey.”

While Domino doesn’t offer a commercial as-a-service edition of its platform, it provides its technology on an as-a-service basis through partnerships including with systems integrators for specific customer projects, Robinson said. Domino’s software is also currently available as a managed service from GTS Data Processing in Germany as part of that company’s DSready Cloud hosted solution.

The TCS alliance is a major step for Domino in that the TCS managed service makes the Domino MLOps software available on a potentially huge scale, Robinson said.

“The beauty here for Domino and Nvidia is we both get to increase our reach with TCS offering the managed service,” Robinson said. “TCS has an absolutely massive reach.”

TCS dedicated software engineering resources to the project while Domino has provided its own field engineers to carry out the integration work and helpdevelop TCS HPC A3, Robinson said. The companies are devoting the next quarter to demonstrating the new system to key customers, developing joint go-to-market initiatives and enabling Domino’s own field teams to work with the TCS system.

The Domino-TCS alliance could be a model for working with other IT service giants in 2022, Robinson said, although he declined to say more. But he said the Domino-TCS deal is in keeping with Domino’s partner strategy.

“We want to be highly partner led,” Robinson said. “AI, ML and data science is a very complex space, especially in the enterprise. As a mid-stage startup, we build technology to satisfy some of that demand. But we look to partners to go much deeper and I think this [alliance] with TCS is a great example of that.”