SUMMARY
Networking has evolved dramatically over the past five decades. The birth of the first network in the late 1960s brought with it the power to connect computational devices intended to improve productivity and collaboration. The creation of Ethernet in the 1970s streamlined networking, as did other efforts to standardize connectivity on a wide scale for personal computers and servers in the 1980s. Public access to the internet in the 1990s redefined the ability to connect people, places, and things, as did cellular mobile networks in the 2000s, delivering higher levels of untethered access and data capacity with the advent of the 3G standard. Within the past decade, machine learning and AI have dramatically improved network operational performance, resiliency, and availability—with business outcomes optimized through software-defined advancements and intent-based network design.
Today, new and exciting applications of AI, including generative AI, are poised to radically transform enterprise workflows. Unsurprisingly, many infrastructure providers are focusing on computational platforms, integrating GPUs and NPUs from the likes of AMD, Intel, and NVIDIA to take advantage of the vast market opportunity. However, networking is an equally crucial element. It is the connective tissue that moves data across multiple domains for the training and inferencing of large language models and for facilitating next-generation cloud-native AI applications such as ChatGPT. With the rise of AI PCs, gen AI will also be enabled at the network edge and require robust front- and back-end connectivity support.
There is a significant opportunity to leverage AI to deliver exceptional connectivity while meeting the demands of next-generation AI applications and hybrid workloads at scale. HPE’s combination of the HPE Aruba Networking business unit and its recent Juniper Networks acquisition is poised to redefine enterprise networking by creating a software-defined, AI-native, and highly secure network platform. Moor Insights & Strategy believes that HPE is in a unique position to accelerate networking to new heights with AI that can scale from cloud to on-premises to edge deployments. This is supported by a newly forged and expansive engineering capability to enable innovation and self-optimization. The result is a complete networking stack that spans custom silicon for programmability, software tools that facilitate agility, cloud and as-a-service offerings that provide consumption flexibility, hardened security, and proven leadership in connectivity and edge infrastructure.
