Broadcom creates & sometimes manufactures a slew of semiconductor-related equipment within data center, networking and industry-specific use cases. Chips and high-performance compute (HPC) can’t all be packed into the same corner of a data center. GPUs must be able to connect to one another to drive better bandwidth and performance, with faster, more efficient model training and inference to cut costs. This is where Broadcom thrives.
It also offers a range of software tools, which significantly broadened out with its VMware acquisition. VMware offers virtual, localized layers of software that sit on top of hardware. This allows the centralized hardware to run several different operating systems. The company, which is now a Broadcom unit, calls these “virtual machines” or virtual private clouds. By reducing hardware requirements, VMware saves its clients money.
This company does not compete with Nvidia in terms of designing GPUs. It does, however, create application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs) for more specialized workloads. It also makes variable processing units (XPUs), which are the high-performance accelerator subsection of ASICs. All XPUs are ASICs but not all ASICs are XPUs. These are often used to optimize data center, networking and GPU performance. In some cases, this can replace various needs for more generalized chips like GPUs. Furthermore, its core niche focuses on networking and connectivity, which competes with Nvidia’s switches and its SpectrumX networking product.