At VMware Explore 2025, Broadcom and Canonical announced the expansion of their strategic partnership aimed at optimizing the deployment of modern container-based applications and artificial intelligence workloads on VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF).
This initiative combines the unified VMware cloud platform with Canonical’s expertise in open-source software and the Ubuntu operating system, recognized as the world’s number one “Cloud OS.” The result: accelerating business innovation with lower costs, increased security, and a more efficient development cycle.
Innovating Without Sacrificing Security
Paul Turner, vice president of product for the VMware Cloud Foundation division at Broadcom, explained: “With VCF, we have created the first modern unified private cloud platform. By combining it with Canonical’s open innovation and Ubuntu, we enable customers to create native Kubernetes applications more efficiently, with fewer risks, and deploy AI workloads more simply.”
Meanwhile, Regis Paquette, senior vice president of global sales and alliances at Canonical, highlighted that this partnership addresses one of organizations’ biggest questions: “Innovate or stay secure? Thanks to Ubuntu Pro and hardened containers, companies can do both at the same time.”
Three Pillars of the Broadcom–Canonical Partnership
The expansion of this partnership delivers three key benefits for customers building modern applications with Kubernetes:
1. End-to-End Enterprise Support
With Ubuntu Pro integrated into VMware Cloud Foundation, customers receive enterprise-level support for both the operating system and Kubernetes-based containers. This includes accelerated security patch management, with robust processes for reviewing and prioritizing critical vulnerabilities.
2. Chiseled Containers for Greater Security and Efficiency
Developers will be able to standardize on reduced Ubuntu containers (chiseled containers) for languages such as Python, .NET, or Go. These containers, by removing unnecessary components, are lighter, consume less storage, and reduce network transfer times. The benefit goes beyond operational — enabling faster development cycles — and enhances security by minimizing attack surfaces.
3. Faster and Safer AI Deployments
One of the major challenges in air-gapped (offline) environments has been dependency on external repositories for GPU driver installations. The partnership addresses this by providing Ubuntu images with precompiled and virtualized GPU drivers, enabling:
- Quicker deployments with fewer resources.
- Enhanced security by reducing reliance on external repositories.
- Elimination of per-node compilation, optimizing performance and hardware utilization.
Advancing Modern Private Cloud Strategies
This alliance comes at a pivotal moment for the industry, where the adoption of containers, Kubernetes, and AI workloads has become the driving force of business innovation. However, the complexity and security risks have slowed their widespread deployment.
Through integration of VCF and Ubuntu, Broadcom and Canonical offer companies a pathway to accelerate application modernization projects while ensuring compliance, security, and operational efficiency.
Conclusion
The expanded partnership between Broadcom and Canonical marks a milestone in the cloud ecosystem: combining the best of enterprise solutions with open-source innovation.
For organizations, this means deploying Kubernetes-based applications and AI workloads faster, at lower costs, and with greater security. For the industry, it signifies a step forward in establishing private cloud as the natural environment for modern innovation.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
What does the Broadcom–Canonical partnership bring?
It integrates VMware Cloud Foundation with Ubuntu Pro and Canonical’s reduced containers, providing a more secure, efficient, and optimized platform for container and AI workloads.
What are Ubuntu’s “chiseled” containers?
They are minimized container images that remove unnecessary components, reduce disk space, accelerate transfers, and minimize attack surfaces against vulnerabilities.
How is AI deployment simplified in air-gapped environments?
By using Ubuntu images with precompiled GPU drivers, eliminating the need to connect to external repositories and avoiding compilation on each node, thus saving time and resources.
What is the security impact?
The partnership enables faster patch management for critical vulnerabilities, reduces risks associated with oversized images, and adopts a more secure technology base for AI and containers.
via: broadcom