Intelligent data plane acceleration by offloading to distributed smart network interfaces

A system for processing data, comprising:

• a compute node having a first processor that is configured to interact with a cloud computing environment;
• the cloud computing environment configured to receive a digital data message containing a request for computing services from the compute node and to allocate processing resources of the cloud computing environment as a function of the request;
• a smart network interface controller (NIC) management system operating on a second processor and configured to cause the second processor to select a remote smart NIC that is separate from the smart NIC management system and associated with a network and to allocate the remote smart NIC to the computing services;
• and
• the remote smart NIC includes a processor that is configured to interface with the network and to send and receive data over the network associated with the computing services.