Accenture — Nvidia deal: A first peek into the new world of genAI-centric strategies

CIOs have historically always been worried about vendor lock in. But Nvidia has such dominance in AI chip development today, bordering on a near-monopoly, that enterprises have no choice but to secure their AI graphics processing units (GPUs) from Nvidia. Given that reality, enterprise CIOs can’t worry about vendor lock in with Nvidia, because they have no viable alternative.

With that established, enterprises have only one decision remaining. They have to customize their AI efforts, often making them domain-specific. Do they do it with their salaried teams or outsource? Most are reluctantly concluding that they need to outsource, mostly for efficiency and speed reasons. Then the decision becomes with whom to outsource: a major player, such as Accenture, Deloitte, IBM, Ernst & Young, or Wipro, or a boutique genAI house. 

That’s the context for evaluating the Accenture deal, said Ted Schadler, a VP and principal analyst for Forrester.