Fulcrum IT Partners Fires First Salvo In Hybrid AI-As-A-Service Charge With Manufacturing Platform
'This is intellectual property we have developed to provide actionable AI to customers,' says Fulcrum IT Partners President Kyle Lanzinger. 'We are productizing the AI-based vertical market domain services we have in our portfolio and also bringing in business leaders with deep industry expertise from our team to work with our customers.'
By Steven Burke
Fulcrum IT Partners, the $1 billion-plus international solution provider sales behemoth with 12 partner companies, has launched what it is calling a massive hybrid AI-as-a-service blitz, starting with its own full-stack AI manufacturing as-a-service platform.
The new hybrid AI manufacturing-as-a-service platform- which was formally rolled out this week that was designed from the ground up as a hybrid AI service for speeding up manufacturing processes.
The new AI manufacturing offering, in fact, has already been deployed by a major automaker that replaced a manual clipboard-based manufacturing quality control process with a predictive maintenance AI-based solution designed by Fulcrum, said Fulcrum IT Partners President Kyle Lanzinger.
The AI software process – which uses a video-based AI solution to monitor the number of times a manufacturing part is touched by a plant worker – was developed by Razor, a Fulcrum IT Partners company.
“You would be amazed how many customers still use clipboard-based workflows for mission critical applications,” Lanzinger said. “Manufacturers continue to use those old processes because of the regulatory and compliance issues. We were able to bring in our own trusted hybrid AI manufacturing service to give them the peace of mind and the ROI they needed to deploy an AI solution.”
The beauty of the Fulcrum IT Partners is it is based on business outcome-based tangible results for vertical markets with proven ROI in hybrid environments, said Lanzinger.
“We are using our vertical market domain expertise to build these as-a-service applications for customers,” he said. “This is intellectual property we have developed to provide actionable AI to customers. We are productizing the AI-based vertical market domain services we have in our portfolio and also bringing in business leaders with deep industry expertise from our team to work with our customers.”
The business line experts Fulcrum is bringing to bear for customers is critical to its Hybrid AI-as-a-Service portfolio, said Lanzinger.
“It is very important to have those business line experts on our staff,” he said. “When you understand the customer’s problems from both the business and the executive suite you can really start to solve problems by bringing in the right vendors and service capabilities to deliver a full AI solution for customers.”
The manufacturing AI service is the first of a series of AI-as-a-Service offerings for vertical markets. Among the as-a-service offerings being prepped for rollout by Fulcrum are retail, manufacturing, healthcare, financial and State Local Education (SLED).
At the heart of the Fulcrum Hybrid AI-as-a-Service blitz is a commitment to providing trusted services that address regulatory and compliance issues with a hybrid service that supports both on premise and hyperscaler cloud environments, said Lanzinger.
Among the companies Fulcrum is teaming up on the hybrid AI sales offensive: Dell Technologies, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Nvidia and Microsoft, said Lanzinger.
Fulcrum is taking the same hybrid model that it has used in on premise pay-per-use, as-a-service models for customers to AI, said Lanzinger.
“We are integrating a wide variety of vendor offerings into our own software and services,” said Lanzinger. “We intend to be the leader in hybrid AI solutions with as-a-service offerings built on applications that combine cloud-enabled machine learning models with governance and compliance-based data that will stay on premise.”
C.R. Howdyshell, CEO of Advizex, a Fulcrum IT Partners company that has made significant AI solution investments and is building out a hybrid AI offensive, said the Hybrid AI-as-a-Service offering is overcoming the “FUD” (Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt) that comes with adopting an AI solution.
“This all comes down to the data, use cases and industry expertise,” he said. “We have a leg-up because we have already invested in these vertical markets. That gave us differentiation around hybrid cloud with as a service with HPE GreenLake and Dell Apex. We expect to see the same or better results in AI because we have data scientists and the people who can write the software and help customers with these AI applications. We don’t care whether they want it on premise or off premise. We can help them solve their challenges by breaking down data silos and delivering the tangible return on investment that customers are looking for in AI solutions.”
Advizex has already been building a growing hybrid AI for manufacturing sales pipeline and has a Hybrid AI for manufacturirng workshop in Cleveland on June 10.
Howdyshell said the Hybrid AI as-a-service offering lines up well with the recently launched Advizex financial services offering that provides AI or other solutions from multiple vendors on a single, as-a-service operating based expenditure bill for customers. That includes a GPU as-a-service offering, said Howdyshell.
The financial backing of Fulcrum is driving significant AI investments that Advizex could not have made on its own, said Howdyshell. “We are excited about the investments Fulcrum is making,” he said. “Fulcrum is doubling down on AI with all of its partners with Razor and Fulcrum Labs. We plan to be the leader in hybrid AI.”
Advizex already has an AI sales pipeline of $50 million to $70 million with its longtime CTO Chris Miller leading the AI charge along with newly appointed Vice President and General Manager of High Performance Compute and AI Steve Kucker.
The strong sales pipeline from Fulcrum and Advizex is driving closer relationships with key OEM partners, said Howdyshell. “We feel we have a big first mover advantage in Hybrid AI as a Service,” he said.