These Are Nvidia’s Top 13 Americas Partners With Fast-Growing AI Businesses
In an exclusive interview with CRN, Nvidia Americas Channel Chief Craig Weinstein says the 13 winners of this year’s Nvidia Partner Network awards represent fast-growing AI businesses that ‘deeply understand’ the GPU giant’s full-stack platform of chips, systems and software.
Nvidia has named the 13 recipients of this year’s Nvidia Partner Network awards in the Americas, and they include several repeat winners, like World Wide Technology and Insight Enterprises, as well as newcomers, like International Computer Concepts and Sterling.
Standing out among Nvidia’s 350 channel partners in North America, the winners of the 2024 Nvidia Partner Network Partner of the Year Awards were announced Tuesday at the company’s first in-person GTC event in nearly five years. The awards recognize partners who are selling Nvidia’s products and services at a fast clip and making major investments with the chip designer.
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Nvidia honored the partners a day after the Santa Clara, Calif.-based company revealed its plan to defend and grow its dominant position in the AI computing space with a new set of significantly more powerful chips and systems along with software meant to accelerate development.
In an exclusive interview with CRN, Nvidia Americas Channel Chief Craig Weinstein said the 13 award-winning partners represent fast-growing AI businesses that “deeply understand” Nvidia’s full-stack platform, which includes GPUs, CPUs and data processing units as well as servers like the DGX systems and software and services like Nvidia AI Enterprise.
“They are not just leading with GPUs. Thiwins is a conversation around Nvidia software architecture, Nvidia hardware architecture [and] the way that intersects with unique and important ISVs [independent software vendors] that deliver unique capabilities to industries that we know are adopting [such solutions],” said Weinstein, vice president of the Americas partner organization.
The partners also understand how Nvidia’s full stack of products and services intersect with the company’s ecosystem of server OEMs, like Dell Technologies, Lenovo and Hewlett Packard Enterprise, according to Weinstein. This extends to Nvidia’s alliances with cloud service providers, too, which include Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud.
“I would say these partners represent probably the most robust view of accelerated computing in any form it may take in the history that I've been with this company,” Weinstein said. “And the level of investment taking place is something that I've never seen in my career.”
These partners in turn have experienced “significant growth” for their AI infrastructure and services practices, which involves doing business not just with Nvidia but also with OEMs, ISVs and other kinds of ecosystem partners, according to the channel chief.
“What they'll tell you is that when AI and generative AI and the use cases and the business opportunities present themselves at a customer, their wallet share in that opportunity goes up significantly,” Weinstein said. “It may be the most significant uptrend that they've seen in their history as being a solution integrator or a solution provider, which creates incremental growth.”
An executive at three-time award-winner Mark III Systems told CRN that his company managed to reach the top again because of its focus on building centers of excellence around fields like AI and high-performance computing to help his customers succeed.
“We've built this organization, I would say, the hard way over the last eight years. That's not only with the ability with data center engineers and GPUs but also folks that engage with builders, to get them to be educated and use the platform,” said Andy Lin, who is CTO and vice president of strategy and innovation of the Houston, Texas-based system integrator.
Christopher Cyr, CTO of first-time winner Sterling, credited his company for focusing on building a relationship with Nvidia rather than seeking a quick way to make money.
“It was really focusing on the future. It was really knowing the work that we would put in with all of our Sterling teammates and all of our Nvidia teammates was going to pay off,” said Cyr, whose North Sioux City, S.D.-based company ranked No. 57 on CRN’s 2023 Solution Provider 500 list.
What follows are the names of the recipients for this year’s 14 Nvidia Partner Network awards for the Americas, which awards they won and why they received the honors.
Lambda
Top Executive: Stephen Balaban, CEO and co-founder
Repeat winner Lambda won Nvidia’s inaugural award for AI Excellence Partner of the Year.
The GPU cloud service provider and system integrator was recognized “for its dedication to providing end-to-end AI solutions featuring Nvidia accelerated computing and Nvidia AI Enterprise across Nvidia DGX and Lambda Cloud.”
World Wide Technology
Top Executive: Jim Kavanaugh, CEO and Co-founder
No. 9 on CRN’s 2023 Solution Provider 500 list, repeat winner World Wide Technology won Nvidia’s inaugural award for Enterprise Partner of the Year.
The St. Louis, Mo.-based company received this commendation for “its leadership, dedication and expertise in advancing the adoption of AI with Nvidia’s portfolio of purpose-built systems, data center networking, software and accelerated computing solutions across machine learning, digital twins, Nvidia Omniverse and visualization,” according to Nvidia.
Converge Technology Solutions
Top Executive: Shaun Maine, President and CEO
No. 30 on CRN’s 2023 Solution Provider 500 list, Converge Technology Solutions took two awards: Canadian Partner of the Year and Networking Partner of the Year.
The Gatineau, Quebec-based company received the Canadian Partner of the Year Award for its “dedication and expertise in NVIDIA DGX systems and for its Canadian customer support services, leveraging training courses from NVIDIA, to further industry knowledge of the NVIDIA software stack,” according to Nvidia.
It received the networking award for its “expertise in NVIDIA high-performance networking solutions to support state-of-the-art accelerated computing deployments,” the GPU designer added.
CDW
Top Executive: Christine A. Leahy, President and CEO
No. 4 on CRN’s 2023 Solution Provider 500 list, repeat winner CDW won Nvidia’s inaugural award for Financial Services Partner of the Year.
The Vernon Hills, Ill.-based company took the award for its “ecosystem partnerships, strategic investments and targeted domain expertise serving financial customers seeking HPC solutions and customer experience solutions such as chatbots and agentless routing,” Nvidia said.
Deloitte
Top Executive: Joe Ucuzoglu, Global CEO
Repeat winner Deloitte received the Global Consulting Partner of the Year award for the fourth year in a row.
The London-based global consulting giant received the honor “for its embrace of generative AI and leveraging the capabilities of Nvidia DGX Cloud,” according to Weinstein.
Mark III Systems
Top Executive: Leslie Powell, CEO and Founder
Repeat winner Mark III Systems won Healthcare Partner of the Year for a second consecutive year.
The Houston, Texas-based systems integrator was honored for its “utilization [of] the NVIDIA healthcare portfolio, which supports biopharma research, academic medical centers, research institutions, healthcare systems and life sciences organizations with NVIDIA infrastructure, software and cloud technologies,” Weinstein wrote.
Cambridge Computer Services
Top Executive: Deena Berton, CEO
No. 222 on CRN’s 2023 Solution Provider 500 list, return winner Cambridge Computer won Higher Education Partner of the Year for a fourth consecutive year.
The Waltham, Mass.-based system integrator was recognized for its “customer service and technical expertise, bringing NVIDIA AI solutions to the life sciences, education and research sectors,” Weinstein said.
Sterling
Top Executive: Brad Moore, CEO
No. 57 on CRN’s 2023 Solution Provider 500 list, Sterling received the Public Sector Partner of the Year award.
The North Sioux City, S.D.-based company won because of its “investment and achievements in developing a robust AI practice,” Weinstein wrote.
“This includes assembling a team of dedicated AI software engineers focused on the full-stack NVIDIA platform, establishing Sterling Labs – an AI briefing center near Washington, DC – and collaborating with NVIDIA to launch ARC, a 5G/6G platform targeted for next-gen wireless networks,” he added.
International Computer Concepts
Top Executive: Ilya Stolyar, CEO
International Computer Concepts won the Rising Star Partner of the Year award.
The Northbrook, Ill.-based systems integrator received the honor due to its “growth in developing AI and machine learning solutions for cloud service providers and financial services customers to power machine learning training, real-time inference and other AI workloads,” Weinstein wrote.
Quantiphi
Top Executive: Asif Hasan, Co-Founder
Repeat winner Quantiphi won the Service Delivery Partner of the Year award for the third time in a row.
What allowed the Marlborough, Mass.-based company to win again in this category was its “commitment to driving adoption of NVIDIA software and hardware in the enterprise,” according to Weinstein.
“Its AI Service Delivery team has demonstrated expertise in using LLMs, information retrieval, imaging and data analytics for solving complex business problems in the telecom, life sciences, retail and energy industries for its global customers,” he added.
TD Synnex
Top Executive: Rich Hume, CEO
TD Synnex won the award for Distribution Partner of the Year.
The Fremont, Calif.-based distributor received the recognition for “demonstrating its commitment to building its AI business on the NVIDIA AI platform, with year-over-year growth that underscores its operational excellence in distribution,” Weinstein wrote.
Insight Enterprises
Top Executive: Joyce Mullen, CEO
No. 16 on CRN’s 2023 Solution Provider 500 list, repeat winner Insight Enterprises won the Software Partner of the Year award.
The Chandler, Ariz.-based solution provider received the award for its “leadership in NVIDIA AI Enterprise deployments, establishing cutting-edge innovation labs and certifications that cultivate expertise while seamlessly embedding generative AI into its operations,” according to Weinstein.
Exxact Corporation
Top Executive: Peter Chen, President
Exxact Corporation won the Solution Integration Partner of the Year award.
The Fremont, Calif.-based systems integrator was honored for its “commitment and expertise in providing end-to-end NVIDIA AI and high-performance computing solutions, including NVIDIA software and data center products across multiple industries,” Weinstein wrote.