Government, AI drive Nutanix in Brazil amid competition with Dell and VMware

Hyperconverged infrastructure software company Nutanix is optimistic about the growing demand for on-premises, non-cloud infrastructure focused on data processing and artificial intelligence (AI) solutions in Brazil, expanding contracts with sectors sensitive to the issue, such as the government and public institutions.

Founded in 2009, the company provides IT infrastructure solutions focused on cloud computing and hyperconverged virtualization, competing with Dell (VxRail) and VMware (vSphere and vSAN) in the global hyperconverged infrastructure, or HCI, market.

Other strong competitors include Cisco (HyperFlex), Red Hat (OpenShift) and Scale Computing (HC3).

In Brazil, Nutanix has a strategic partnership with Positivo to locally assemble Supermicro servers optimized for its hybrid cloud and AI technology.

"This transition occurred due to tax incentives related to assembly and the PPB [Basic Production Process]. Additionally, we sought strategic partnerships and established relationships with some players in order to adapt tax issues arising from the bilateral tax agreement between Brazil and the United States," Leonel Oliveira, general director of Nutanix in Brazil, told BNamericas.

According to him, the objective is to mitigate the impact of local taxes and align strategies that help overcome the challenges of a "complex" tax scenario.

"It's worth noting that operating in this environment isn't simple due to the tax burden. Tax changes have a significant impact on businesses, and any changes in tax policies can severely impact investments, making the production chain more critical and making acquisition decisions more difficult."

To meet the growing demand from companies using AI, the company launched Nutanix Enterprise AI (NAI) in November last year, a platform that simplifies the implementation and management of artificial intelligence and large language models (LLMs).

NAI provides secure endpoints for generative AI APIs and can be deployed on-premises, in the cloud, or at the edge—and is already being used by Brazilian customers.

Regarding the outlook for 2026 in Brazil, Oliveira predicts that the pace of growth will continue even in the face of possible changes in the government sector with the presidential and gubernatorial elections in October.

"The scenario indicates an interesting shift, mainly due to market dynamics, modernization and rationalization of internal investments," he said.

Performance

In Q4 2025, Nutanix achieved US$2.2 billion in annual recurring revenue (ARR), a 17% increase year-over-year.

The company has 29,000 global customers in the financial services, government, and healthcare sectors, including Wells Fargo, Tata, Airbus, Caterpillar, NTT Data, Total Energies, Hitachi, and ConocoPhillips. The company's global workforce totals 7,500 employees, and research and development accounts for 22% of sales.

Present for 12 years in Brazil, its largest market in Latin America, Nutanix records average growth of 15% in its customer base each quarter, Oliveira said at a press conference.

It currently serves around 500 clients in the public, financial, industrial, educational and retail sectors.

All local operations, including sales, are conducted through partner channels. This ecosystem grew 35% in the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2025 (Q4FY25), totaling over 100 active partners, according to the executive.

Among the most widely adopted solutions in the country is AHV, a virtualization platform present in over 70% of local customers, Oliveira said. Nutanix operates in all Brazilian states and maintains contracts with public agencies such as finance departments, traffic departments, and audit courts.

There is also a strategic collaboration with Pure Storage and a recent contract with the government of Cundinamarca, Colombia, expanding our presence in the Latin American public sector.

Among the use cases in Brazil, the Court of Auditors of Mato Grosso state stands out, which sought greater agility in people management, keeping its data in its own data center, and using the Nutanix platform to run Meta's Llama model.

Senior developer Marco Antonio Azevedo stated that the agency is considering applying electronic analysis to bids as the next step in its digitalization.

Another case is that of the Acre state finance department, which is testing the Llama 3.2 and Gema 2 models in a Nutanix environment. The tests, which began three months ago, are supported by an IBM Granite solution integrated with the Nutanix NIA cluster.

The department, a VMware and Dell customer for more than 10 years, decided to migrate to Nutanix due to the search for greater security and convergence, in addition to the uncertainty after the sale of VMware to Broadcom and the lack of definition regarding the renewal of licensing by Dell, according to senior software analyst Rafael Castro.

"We operate within the market that already has VMware, but we're also serving a lot of new customers. Only 12% of our customers work with VMware," Oliveira said at the press conference, referring to the arrival of customers from competitors.

Regarding Red Hat, although the company is one of the main competitors, customers report that the implementation with Nutanix is more efficient, says the executive.

"If you don't have application portability, you don't have the freedom to come and go."

(The original version of this content was written in Portuguese)