For the week ending July 11 CRN takes a look at the companies that brought their ‘A’ game to the channel including Nvidia, Capgemini, IBM, AWS and Snowflake.
The Week Ending July 11
Topping this week’s Five Companies that Came to Win list is GPU chip designer Nvidia for becoming the first company to ever hit a market capitalization of $4 trillion.
Also making this week’s this is IT services giant Capgemini for a strategic acquisition in the AI agentic services space. And AI and data cloud platform giant Snowflake is here for boosting its channel operations with the hire of a new channel chief.
Announcements of new processor technology are prominent in this week’s list. IBM makes the list for debuting its next-generation Power11 server processor while AWS unveiled its new P6e-GB200 UltraServers based on Nvidia Blackwell GPUs.
Nvidia Beats Microsoft To Become First Company To Hit $4 Trillion Market Cap
Nvidia this week became the first company to hit a $4 trillion market capitalization.
The AI infrastructure giant achieved the milestone after its share price grew 2.4 percent to $164, according to Reuters, making it the world’s most valuable company once again. Its stock price has risen approximately 18 percent since the beginning of the year.
At the time of Nvidia reaching the sky-high market capitalization Wednesday morning, Microsoft had the second largest market cap at roughly $3.7 trillion and Apple had the third largest at $3.1 trillion.
Santa Clara, Calif.-based Nvidia exceeded $3 trillion in market cap for the first time in June 2024 and weeks later surpassed Microsoft to become the world’s most valuable company for the first time. It hit the No. 1 spot at least two more times last year.
Nvidia continues to report high demand for its GPUs and associated products in data centers for generative and agentic AI workloads. In its first quarter, Nvidia’s revenue grew nearly 70 percent year over year to $44.1 billion despite a multibillion-dollar write-off that was caused by new U.S. export controls on the company’s H20 GPUs being shipped into China.
Capgemini’s Planned $3.3B Buy Of WNS Targets Agentic AI Expansion
Global business and technology services provider Capgemini makes this week’s Came to Win list for its $3.3 billion deal to buy India-based WNS in a significant play to build scale with the business process services needed to provide agentic AI.
Paris-based Capgemini, ranked No. 4 on CRN’s 2025 Solution Provider 500, is a $23 billion global business and technology transformation company with a focus on AI, GenAI, cloud, and data. WNS, headquartered in New York, London, and Mumbai, is a $1.3 billion global provider of business process management services.
In an analyst conference call after news of the acquisition plan was released, Capgemini CEO Aiman Ezzat said the deal targets the growing need for AI capabilities.
“This transaction positions the group as a leader in the emerging market of intelligent operation, which is the most significant opportunity for our clients to create value in the era of GenAI and agentic AI,” Ezzat said. “The strategic value of this transaction lies in the complementarity of capabilities and expertise between Capgemini and WNS to provide intelligent operations at scale.”
The $3.3 billion acquisition, which has been unanimously approved by the boards of both companies, is expected to close by the end of 2025, Ezzat said.
IBM Launches Power11 Processor, Says It Will Help Partners Unlock AI For Clients
IBM this week launched its Power11 processor, arming the Power division’s 1,000-plus business partners with the ability for full-stack integration to deliver enhanced productivity, transformation through artificial intelligence, and other outcomes for customers.
During a virtual press conference, Bargav Balakrishnan, IBM Power product management vice president, said the processor creates new opportunities for solution providers.
He used the example of Power11 combining SAP ERP modernization software and consulting from either IBM’s own consulting business—No. 6 on CRN’s 2025 Solution Provider 500—or the capabilities of IBM solution providers. The new processor enables a 25 percent faster migration to Power Virtual Server on IBM Cloud for SAP Rise: There are about 10,000 SAP clients on the Power platform.
“It’s that combination of server, partners, et cetera, that delivers on that full-stack promise to ultimately deliver the outcome our clients need,” he said. Customers want “to go from the promise of AI to the profits of AI.”
Power11 aims to not only give users the division’s full system stack, but the full IBM stack for AI, automation, hybrid cloud and other scenarios. High-end, midrange and entry servers are all available now, a first for IBM in an effort to simplify adoption. Power11 is also available in the IBM Power Virtual Server in IBM Cloud for instant availability, Balakrishnan said.
AWS Unleashes New Nvidia Blackwell-Based Servers For Advanced AI Tasks
Staying on the topic of advanced processors, Amazon Web Services is expanding its lineup of GPU-based servers, this week announcing the general availability of a new system based on Nvidia Grace Blackwell Superchips targeting the training and deployment of “the largest, most sophisticated AI models.”
The new P6e-GB200 UltraServers “represent our most powerful GPU offering to date,” said David Brown, vice president of AWS Compute and ML, in a blog post. The new compute services “build on everything we’ve learned about delivering secure, reliable GPU infrastructure at a massive scale, so that customers can confidently push the boundaries of AI,” Brown wrote.
Each P6e-GB200 UltraServer includes up to 72 Blackwell GPUs interconnected using fifth-generation Nvidia NVLink, all functioning as a single compute unit. Each UltraServer provides 360 petaflops of FP8 computer power, 13.4TB of high bandwidth memory, and up to 28.8 Tbps of Elastic Fiber Adapter (EFAv4) networking.
The P6e-GB200 UltraServer “is ideal” for the most compute- and memory-intensive AI workloads, such as “training frontier models at the trillion-parameter scale,” Brown said.
“The scale of the AI systems that our customers are building today—across drug discovery, enterprise search, software development, and more—is truly remarkable,” Brown wrote. The goal with the new Blackwell systems is to provide “secure, reliable GPU infrastructure at a massive scale, so that customers can confidently push the boundaries of AI.”
Snowflake Recruits AWS Executive As New Channel Chief
Snowflake this week named 11-year Amazon Web Services veteran Chris Niederman as its new channel chief, succeeding Tyler Prince, who left the company in April.
Niederman will start at the AI and data cloud company on July 21, taking on the official title of senior vice president of alliances and channels, according to a company statement. At AWS he held the post of managing director of the Industries and Solutions team.
Niederman steps into the top channel job at a time when Snowflake’s partner ecosystem is exploding, with the vendor surpassing 12,600 total partners worldwide, about 30 percent growth year over year.
“Throughout my career, I’ve seen how a thriving partner ecosystem and partner-led growth directly impact customer success,” Niederman said in a statement. “Snowflake’s partners are at the forefront of innovation, extending the power of the AI Data Cloud and enabling our joint customers to unlock maximum value from their data and drive business outcomes. I look forward to getting to work, meeting our partners and customers in the field, and deepening these critical relationships to accelerate our joint successes.”
Niederman will report to Snowflake CRO Mike Gannon. Amy Kodl, who served as interim alliances and channels leader after Prince’s departure, will continue as vice president of global system integrator and Americas alliances, her role before Prince left.
