Universal Music Group (UMG) is teaming up with Nvidia to use AI to transform how UMC's catalog of music is consumed and created.

UMG will use Nvidia's AI infrastructure to bring AI to music discovery, creation, and user engagement, covering the millions of tracks UMG holds in its catalog in various genres and eras.

The solution will use the Nvidia Music Flamingo model, which Nvidia says can bring a "human-like" understanding of songs. It processes full-length tracks up to 15 minutes and can analyse harmony, structure, timbre, lyrics, and cultural context, which is accessible to the listeners.

On the artist side, Nvidia and UMG plan to establish an "artist incubator" that will bring together artists, songwriters, and producers to co-design and test AI tools.

Sir Lucian Grainge, UMG’s chairman and CEO, said: “We’re excited to establish this ground-breaking strategic relationship which unites the world’s leading technology company with the world’s leading music company in a shared mission to harness revolutionary AI technology to dramatically advance the interests of the creative community and the role of music in global culture.

"We eagerly embrace the opportunities that AI presents, and the fact that Nvidia is choosing to take a leadership position in the tech industry in their commitment to responsible AI principles is critically important."

“We’re entering an era where a music catalog can be explored like an intelligent universe – conversational, contextual, and genuinely interactive,” added Richard Kerris, Nvidia's VP/GM of media. “By extending Nvidia’s Music Flamingo with UMG’s unmatched catalog and creative ecosystem, we’re going to change how fans discover, understand, and engage with music on a global scale. And we’ll do it the right way: responsibly, with safeguards that protect artists’ work, ensure attribution, and respect copyright.”

UMG previously trained its "Music and Advanced Machine Learning Lab" on Nvidia infrastructure.

The companies have not stated where the AI infrastructure will be based – whether UMG will house it on-premises, use one of Nvidia's cloud-based offerings, or another cloud provider. DCD has contacted UMG for further information.

In 2018, UMG laid out its cloud strategy in a presentation with Amazon Web Services, revealing that it uses the AWS platform. Employee pages on LinkedIn further emphasise a reliance on AWS and a strategy to move to the cloud. Whether UMG retains any on-prem or colocation footprint is unclear. DCD has also asked UMG to detail its infrastructure strategy further.

UMG is one of the largest record labels globally. The company owns and operates a variety of music businesses. Its origins go back to 1934 with the launch of Decca Records. Tencent holds a 20 percent share in the company, which went public in 2021.