Broadcom is rolling out a substantial set of updates to VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF), aimed squarely at customers trying to stand up private AI infrastructure while also tightening security and compliance controls. The changes include native S3-compatible object storage inside vSAN, an automated onboarding tool for AI workloads, new disaster-recovery capabilities, and a stripped-down edition of vSphere for smaller deployments.
Automating the path to private AI
A centerpiece of the update is AI Infrastructure Quickstart, which Broadcom describes as an automated "Day 0" deployment experience delivered through a vCenter plugin. It handles vCenter cluster deployment, Supervisor configuration, and VKS cluster provisioning automatically, cutting down the manual setup work typically required before an organization can begin running AI workloads on its own infrastructure. Prashanth Shenoy, Broadcom's CMO and VP of Product Marketing, frames the broader push as a response to rising AI infrastructure costs, new AI-related security risks, and the spread of agentic AI workloads, all of which he says are forcing IT leaders to rethink where and how workloads run.
Object storage and infrastructure compliance
VCF is also gaining native S3-compatible object storage within vSAN, intended to support AI projects, cloud-native applications, and backup and recovery tasks, with self-service provisioning available through vSphere Supervisor or VCF Automation. Alongside this, a new infrastructure configuration management and compliance capability-built into VCF Operations-lets administrators continuously check components such as vCenter and VCF Storage against benchmarks including the Payment Card Industry (PCI) standard and VMware's own VCF Security Baseline, shifting compliance from a reactive to a proactive process with drift detection and remediation.
Networking, recovery and a lighter-weight option
Policy-based Virtual Private Cloud connectivity gives platform teams a way to define workload isolation and security policies that developers can then consume on a self-service basis, without waiting on manual network approvals. Broadcom is also adding native disaster recovery to both VCF and VMware vSphere Foundation, promising orchestrated recovery across large numbers of workloads, complemented by VMware Live Recovery's secure "clean room" recovery environment. For organizations with smaller footprints, VMware vSphere Express offers core virtualization-ESX Standard, vCenter Standard, vMotion, High Availability, and built-in TPM 2.0 support-for environments of up to 128 cores.
Availability and open questions
VMware Live Recovery, VMware Compliance and Configuration Management, and vSphere Express are available immediately. The remaining features-AI Infrastructure Quickstart, vSAN object storage, infrastructure compliance management, VPC connectivity, and disaster recovery-are expected in the next VCF release, targeted for general availability in Broadcom's fiscal Q1 2027. Separately, customers in the European Economic Area will retain access to vSphere Standard v8 and Enterprise Plus v8 through October 2027, with extended support running to October 2028. Whether these additions are enough to slow the migration of smaller VMware customers toward alternatives such as Nutanix and Proxmox remains uncertain, particularly as competitors continue to move quickly on their own AI-oriented features.