A Vision for AI Cloud Solutions & Infrastructure

The cloud was designed to be an efficient and easy-to-use answer to data woes, but it hasn’t always delivered. Here, we discuss cloud challenges and solutions with two experts - Youlian Tzanev from NexGen Cloud and Moussa Zaghdoud of Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise.

NexGen Cloud: complexities and solutions

NexGen Cloud is a specialist AI cloud provider focused on constructing complex environments, where Youlian Tzanev works as the Co-founder and Chief Strategy Officer. His role is focused on building partnerships, developing the NexGen Cloud’s go to market strategy and managing key accounts.  

“We enable businesses to sustainably access high-power computing infrastructure,” he says. “A significant portion of this capacity is integrated into Hyperstack, a service for on-demand GPU access, which allows users to harness high-performance GPUs. The latest and most advanced chips are organised in large-scale clusters for the most intensive applications, ensuring optimal performance for AI and high-performance computing tasks.”

As Strategy Officer, Youlian’s responsibilities extend beyond revenue and sales, to include comprehensive problem-solving. 

“A significant part of my role involves liaising with different partners and mitigating the friction that can occur when a business experiences rapid growth,” he explains. 

In terms of sales, Youlian supports some of NexGen Cloud’s largest accounts, frequently collaborating with investors to ensure that they meet targets. Youlian works closely with the marketing and communications teams to achieve these objectives.

Since joining the company, Youlian has learned that navigating the complexities of cloud environments requires significant adaptability. 

“The cloud industry is dominated by a few key vendors due to the intricate nature of creating and maintaining these cloud environments. A core advantage of cloud environments is the ability to offload complexity to the vendor, so managing such a rapidly evolving and complex environment is a major challenge,” Youlian says. “Consequently, I have enhanced my people management skills to ensure that not only am I adaptable, but I also instil this adaptability in my teams, enabling them to operate effectively.”

Ultimately, NextGen Cloud knows that it is a new competitor in a market dominated by a handful of large mature vendors. That competition makes it a better market for customers. 

“The cloud marketplace is currently broken,” says Youlian. “It was supposed to be a cost-efficient and simple-to-implement alternative, but it has not recently delivered on that promise. It has become too expensive and complicated, prompting businesses to move infrastructure back on-premise.”

According to Youlian, the traditional data centre locations in London, Dublin, Paris and Frankfurt are becoming constrained due to space and power delivery issues, so some increases in cost are unavoidable. However, there are plenty of workloads that are low latency, which can be shifted to areas that have better power supply and more space for developing new facilities.

“At its core, that is what we have done with NexGen,” he says. “We have found areas with excess renewable power that can handle this new infrastructure. With our renewable energy partners, we actually give back more power generation than we take, creating two megawatts of generation for every megawatt we use.”

Youlian sees giving back to the grid as the future for data centres as their energy demand continues to rise.

NextGen Cloud is an NVIDIA NCP Partner, which aims to be part of the rollout for the new Blackwell GPUs. Its energy and technology partners, WEKA and AQ, support NextGen Cloud’s technology and renewable energy delivery. 

“A key part of our business that I’m working on now is developing relationships with OEM manufacturers,” Youlian continues. “These are the businesses that make the units and racks that hold the chips for our servers. Building a data centre is a three-part problem, first you have to get the chips, then you have to build the servers themselves with a partner like Dell, then you have to deploy them. Our value offering requires solving each of those three challenges, so OEMs is a major area I’m currently focused on.”

Cloud innovation at Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise

Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise has long been a leading force in telecommunications systems for businesses. Throughout its history, the company has consistently developed innovative solutions in communications, networking and cloud communication. Recognising that connectivity and security are crucial for business success, Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise is dedicated to delivering top-tier services across more than 50 countries, from its base in France. 

Moussa Zaghdoud is the Executive Vice-President of Cloud at Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise. With over 25 years of experience in the business communications industry, he has been fortunate to contribute to key developments in the industry and navigate the technological challenges that have shaped the market. 

“In recent years, my focus has been on the evolution of cloud communications, which has become increasingly significant,” he says.

Moussa’s role within the organisation is multifaceted. As the leader of ALE's cloud business and strategy, he has been deeply involved in the development and growth of its cloud communication and collaboration platform, Rainbow. 

“Over the past eight years, I have focused on engaging with companies, ALE customers, users and our numerous partners to help them understand the benefits of shifting their communication solutions to cloud or hybrid technologies, both from an operational and business model perspective,” Moussa explains.

ALE understands that each individual company has its own unique requirements and Moussa’s aim is to ensure that the company addresses every aspect of their needs. 

“We offer various versions of our cloud solution, hosted in private, public, or hybrid environments, to fully leverage existing cloud infrastructures and maximise their potential,” he explains. “To achieve this, we have a dedicated and passionate team of engineers, developers and sales professionals, all striving to deliver the most advanced user experience, the most innovative concepts based on customer feedback and the most secure systems to protect our customers' data.”

Rainbow is available worldwide, with over four million professional users and one billion interactions on the platform every day. It continues to grow year on year and we’re seeing strong adoption from both customers and partners. 

“Our main challenge—or rather, our main priority—is to ensure we listen to our customers and work closely with our business partners to deliver the most innovative solutions and appropriate features that help businesses in their daily tasks,” he adds. “This includes Rainbow connectors with Teams, SFDC, Dynamics, Zendesk or Rainbow assets such as Rainbow Alert, Rainbow Classroom, Rainbow Webinar and Rainbow Workflow.” 

Given the accelerating shift towards cloud solutions, Moussa is sure that Rainbow, alongside other leading cloud solutions, will continue to gain traction. 

“Another challenge we are addressing is data sovereignty. Users, particularly companies, need to understand the sensitivity of the data they produce and share, much of which should be owned, controlled and utilised solely by those who produce this data - the companies themselves. That is why data sovereignty is a key focus for us. We have worked diligently to obtain various certifications required by governmental institutions, such as CSPN, ENS, FERPA, HIPAA and more.”

Experts say AI and sustainability will shape cloud solutions

The future of cloud solutions will be based around two main themes, AI and sustainability.

For Youlian, being sustainable means making the most of the energy used, even if it is coming from renewables. NextGen Cloud is already offsetting its emissions by using renewable sources - but that is only one aspect of mitigating climate impact. 

“We are still trying to reduce our total energy consumption with more efficient infrastructure,” says Youlian. “The next generation of chips are liquid cooled, which reduces energy consumption by 60% - potentially more when immersed liquid cooling becomes more available. We are making our facilities ready to accept direct and immersed liquid cooling.”

Moussa believes that the future holds huge opportunities and new directions for cloud technologies, particularly when combined with the power of AI. 

“By leveraging AI, companies can enhance their cloud-based communication systems with advanced analytics, automation and personalised experiences, driving greater efficiency and innovation,” he says.

As the cloud landscape evolves, he sees that more organisations are choosing hybrid solutions or returning to private cloud environments. 

“This trend is driven by the desire to benefit from cloud features while maintaining control over their data. With cybersecurity being a major challenge for many organisations, protecting sensitive information has become an even greater priority, fueling the shift towards hybrid solutions,” he says.

In this context, ‘confidential computing’ has emerged as a key concept, offering enhanced data protection and privacy in hybrid and private cloud environments.

To read the full story in the magazine click HERE

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