Just one month into his new role as chief information officer, Red Hat’s Marco Bill is already helping the company reach for the stars — literally. From a unique space collaboration, to helping businesses navigate their AI ambitions, to rolling with quickly emerging technologies, Bill is forging ahead in his new role.
The Raleigh N.C.-based open-source software giant recently announced a new collaboration with Axiom Space to run a data center on the International Space Station. The mission will launch this spring and Red Hat’s Device Edge will power Data Center Unit-1, enabling hybrid cloud applications and cloud-native workloads — in outer space.
Axiom says the effort will allow data center customers to have access to satellite data closer to the source, making transmission quicker and more efficient. Bill says the collaboration was an opportunity for Red Hat to innovate in a new space.
“It was a mutual interest,” Bill says of the space project. “We don’t really have a space mission at Red Hat, but it’s obviously a use case that fits very well with us and what we do. It’s very intriguing. For us at Red Hat, it’s good to be exposed to these new environments. We always learn and we can improve our products.”
Axiom says its Orbital Space Center (OBC) will have tangible benefits, including reducing delays by utilizing cloud storage and edge processing infrastructure, allowing for faster and more secure connections in orbit. Reducing latency in space will allow quicker access to orbital data sources for terrestrial users, the company says.
(Editors Note: Be sure to check out this week’s “DOS Won’t Hunt” Podcast, which features a panel discussion about data centers in exotic locations, including space).
Earthly AI Ambitions
Back on Earth, Red Hat is facing more terrestrial issues, like the sudden AI arms race sparked by booming enterprise interest in generative AI (GenAI). Like any company, Red Hat is balancing increasing AI infrastructure costs.
“The development of AI is definitely our big mission,” Bill says. “We want to be a leader there … and that’s where the budget goes from a company perspective. I have to provide infrastructure there — the data is important as well, so I’ve got to follow that. I have to provide an environment with the right GPUs, right?”
CIOs struggling to balance budgets with priorities can learn from Red Hat’s process, Bill says. “I do spend quite a bit of money on the whole transformation of data, because that’s where we were lagging. So, we cleaned this up over the last two years … And then there’s not much budget left, right? So, you really have to work with the business and identify the priorities.”
CIOs need to place a high priority on AI, Bill says. “The biggest advice I would give to other CIOs is not to ignore AI or to find excuses why AI doesn’t work in their environment. Don’t ignore this. [AI] is bigger than the internet when it came around and companies who ignored the internet aren’t around anymore. Don’t find excuses, really double down and find ways to experiment. Finding that right use case is important, but this is not hype.”
Securing Open Source
Many IT leaders may struggle with the option of open-source solutions as they struggle with increasing cybersecurity threats. They may see open-source software as a risky proposition, despite benefits in cost and innovation. Bill says CIOs can take advantage of the open-source value proposition and maintain a strong security stance.
“We have a whole cyber team engaged globally 24/7 and they’re engaged in the communities,” he says. “When you have a good team of people, you can mix open source. In our culture, if you have a lot of open-source engineers, they want to have some freedom. I cannot give them a Windows laptop and lock it down — you’ve got to give them environments they can actually work with in the open-source community. But you still need to control it. That’s one of the biggest challenges.”
Red Hat and the Future of Tech
For Bill, the next several years of tech will bring more diversity in cloud infrastructure and placement. “You will have some applications running on the ground, you will have some in the public cloud, and you’ll have data centers in space. You’ll have to be on different footprints, and that can be for geopolitical reasons or because of cost. So being on a hybrid-cloud infrastructure is really important.”
And that infrastructure will usher in a new era of AI, where companies can begin reaping benefits and seeing a return on investment.
“There is so much we can do with AI,” Bill says. “With Red Hat, our infrastructure is important. Linux is still important to us. That’s our foundation with open source and having the Kubernetes platform. How do those work together? How do they work on a hybrid cloud and enable AI? There will be a lot of evolution with the large language models … that’s the future that we see.”