Starting with NSX 4.0.1.1, vSphere Distributed Services Engine provides the ability to offload some of the network operations from your server CPU to a data processing unit (DPU also known as SmartNIC).

Using DPU devices for network acceleration frees up the CPU capacity for business-critical workloads. Besides accelerating networking performance, DPU devices improve network visibility and security acceleration.

Note: DPUs are supported on hosts in a vSphere Lifecycle Manager-enabled cluster that are running at least ESXi 8.0 version or higher.

NSX supports NVIDIA BlueField-2 (25G) and AMD Pensando (25G and 100G) DPUs only. However, starting with NSX 4.1.1, NSX also supports NVIDIA BlueField-2 (100G).

License

To utilize the NSX DPU-based acceleration or NSX offload capabilities, you need to purchase an NSX Enterprise Plus Term license (Per Core basis) or an NSX Enterprise Plus with Threat Prevention Term license (Per Core basis).
Note: For vSphere offload capabilities, you do not need to purchase a separate NSX license. You just need to have the vSphere ENT + Term license and be on vSphere 8. NSX Manager is available as a part of vSphere ENT+.

Once the license key is applied, you should be able to offload the routing and DFW capabilities to the DPU.

Enable Network Offloads

Workflow to Enable Network Offloads:

Image depicts the workflow to enable the network offloads capability

Reference Topics

For more information, refer to the following topics:

VMware vSphere Distributed Services Engine See the topic, Introducing VMware vSphere® Distributed Services EngineTM and Networking Acceleration by Using DPUs , in the VMware ESXi Installation and Setup guide under VMware vSphere Product Documentation.
vSphere Lifecycle Manager with VMware vSphere Distributed Services Engine See the topic, Using vSphere Lifecycle Manager with VMware vSphere Distributed Services Engine, in the Managing Host and Cluster Lifecycle guide under VMware vSphere Product Documentation.
Network Offloads and vCenter Server specific steps See the topic, What is Network Offloads Compatibility, in the vSphere Networking guide under VMware vSphere Product Documentation.
ESXi on DPU See the topic, Introducing ESXi on Data Processing Units (DPUs), in the VMware ESXi Installation and Setup guide under VMware vSphere Product Documentation.
Prepare an NSX Cluster with vSphere Lifecycle Manager and troubleshooting issues SeePrepare an NSX-T Cluster with vSphere Lifecycle Manager