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HPE news. Tech insights. World-class innovations. We take you straight to the source — interviewing tech's foremost thought leaders and change-makers that are propelling businesses and industries forward.
Aubrey Lovell (00:10):
Hey everyone and welcome back to Technology Now, a weekly show from Hewlett Packard Enterprise, where we take what's happening in the world and explore how it's changing the way organizations are using technology. And today we are on the move. We're your hosts, Aubrey Lovell.
Michael Bird (00:25):
And Michael Bird. Yes, Aubrey. We are on the move because in this episode I'm talking to you right here, the show floor at HPE Discover Barcelona 2024, one of HPE's biggest events on the calendar. We're going to be breaking down all the big news and updates from the keynote hosted by HPE's President and CEO, Antonio Neri. As we head towards 2025, looking at what's been achieved so far this year, what's to come in the future, and of course exploring what this means for our organizations.
Aubrey Lovell (00:58):
I am so excited. I can't wait to hear. And if you're the kind of person who needs to know why what's going on in the world matters to your organization, this podcast is for you. And if you haven't yet, subscribe to your podcast app of choice so you don't miss out. All right, Michael, let's get into it.
Michael Bird (01:14):
Yeah, let's do it.
Aubrey Lovell (01:19):
Okay, so obviously this is a huge day. Tell us a little bit what it's like on the show floor and how things have been going.
Michael Bird (01:26):
Well, Aubrey. Yeah, it certainly feels like there's quite a bit of a buzz round here, and I think it's the biggest HPE Discover Barcelona I've been to, although this is my second. So of the two that I've been to, this is the biggest. I know that you've been to quite a few HPE Discovers in the past. What's always been your favorite bit Aubrey?
Aubrey Lovell (01:42):
Well, HPE Discover is the event to be at, right? There's just so much to do, so much to see between talking to customers, partners, seeing all the sessions, but obviously my favorite is the keynote. That's really where you pop your popcorn and you get the latest and greatest and it's just so excited to attend those. What about you?
Michael Bird (02:00):
Yeah, well, I would agree. One of my highlights, as with all HPE Discovers for me is also the keynote. Now, the keynote this year was hosted by HPE's President and CEO, Antonio Neri and it featured a host of new announcements and iterations on existing programs, products, and services. So that is what we're going to be unpacking today. Now to help explain it earlier, I caught up with Clesmie Burden, HPE chief of staff for global sales. Clesmie, thank you so much for joining us. Welcome to the show.
Clesmie Burden (02:29):
Thank you so much for having me on the show. I am a new fan, but a big fan.
Michael Bird (02:34):
So it's been a big day of announcements, so let's just pick them apart one by one. And I'd love to start by talking about supercomputers and HPC. There were lots of exciting announcements here, so let's just quickly hear a clip.
Antonio Neri (02:47):
We have kept the innovation engine churning. We never stop. And just few days ago at the SC24, which is the Supercomputing 2024 event, the largest annual supercomputing conference, we announce a new milestone in exascale computing with the world's largest, fastest supercomputer called El Capitan. The supercomputer was built by HPE in collaboration with the United States Department of Energy, the National's Nuclear Security Administration, and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. Beyond its speeds, it is also among the top 20 energy-efficient systems. El Capitan illustrates HPE's continued leadership in building and running the most scaled computer systems on the planet.
(03:44):
This is an area where HP demonstrates its engineering prowess time and again. In performance and sustainability leadership, our supercomputers are marvels of engineering. These systems represent the ingenuity that is rooted in HPE's DNA and enable us to help our customers and partners unlock their ambitions. Engineers are problem solvers and we have solved some of the biggest challenges a customer put in front of us, including some of the biggest societal challenges. Being able to deliver exascale computing is a testament to our deep engineering expertise and heritage, which makes me as a CEO of this company, incredible proud.
Michael Bird (04:35):
So Clesmie, what are your thoughts?
Clesmie Burden (04:37):
Yeah, so first and foremost, Michael, it's great to be here and I will say you're right. There were a ton of exciting announcements within the keynote and Antonio definitely flexed his muscles a little bit on behalf of HPE in asserting HPE's dominance and engineering expertise in the supercomputing space. We highlighted some recent announcements at Supercomputing 24 with the release of El Capitan, which is now the fastest supercomputer in existence, and that leaves HPE in a position where we have the only three exascale supercomputers that are out there.
Michael Bird (05:09):
Yeah.
Clesmie Burden (05:10):
So it was an exciting announcement and definitely something that I think the audience noticed.
Michael Bird (05:16):
There's obviously a massive drive here for high-performance computing. Do you think it's purely driven by AI or is there a bit more to it?
Clesmie Burden (05:25):
Honestly, I think the lines are getting blurred, but effectively, no, there are more applications and uses for supercomputers than just AI. At the root of it, AI is just advanced data processing at its core.
Michael Bird (05:37):
Yeah.
Clesmie Burden (05:37):
Which supercomputers are really, really good at. So I think that's why they get associated so closely as often as they do. But the reality is supercomputers also fuel innovation and discovery, and then nonstop mission-critical environments as well. So there's way more to supercomputers than just AI, even though it gives an added boost to organization's ability to exploit AI.
Michael Bird (06:00):
Okay, well let's quickly talk about liquid cooling because it was a hot topic, pun intended, for the keynote. So here's a quick clip.
Antonio Neri (06:10):
HPE is a leader in direct liquid cooling across both server and networking. That includes illustrating the power of our decades of experience in designing, manufacturing, operating, and servicing El Capitan-class systems at scale, leveraging a hundred percent fanless direct liquid cooling because I don't think the audience understand when we cool systems, it's not just the server or the silicon. We actually cool the entire infrastructure and we have more than 300 patents in this space. Since 2018, we have manufactured and deployed more than 200,000 direct liquid cool server nodes.
(06:54):
And since 2020, we have done the same for nearly 22,000 direct liquid cool networking switches, which when you do the math, it translates to more than 1 million ports globally with our HPE Slingshot networking fabric. These nodes, switches and ports are what enable supercomputing and generative AI. As an example, here in Europe, in the United Kingdom, the AI research resource program funded by the US government is providing extremely large machines such as Isambard-AI at the University of Bristol to ensure sovereign AI capability and easy of access to both research and industry.
Michael Bird (07:45):
So Clesmie, why does liquid cooling matter?
Clesmie Burden (07:49):
It doesn't sound like a very cool topic, pun intended, to discuss.
Michael Bird (07:54):
Yes.
Clesmie Burden (07:54):
But the reality is it is extremely important.
Michael Bird (07:57):
Yeah.
Clesmie Burden (07:57):
Especially as we see these compute-intensive workloads emerging, particularly AI, which are pushing compute architectures to their limits. And there's a lot of heat associated with these workloads so we need to find a more efficient and effective way to dissipate this heat, which leads to a more sustainable, performant and effective workload, and ultimately drive down costs for our customers.
Michael Bird (08:20):
Yeah.
Clesmie Burden (08:20):
There's also a business element to sustainability in lower utility bills. So extremely important topic, and I'm glad it was discussed.
Michael Bird (08:28):
I mean you touched on this, but how does an investment in liquid cooling make a difference to customers on the ground?
Clesmie Burden (08:33):
Well, I think it's bringing forth a redefined cooling architecture that is really the future of the industry.
Michael Bird (08:41):
Yeah.
Clesmie Burden (08:41):
And it benefits our customers directly in lower costs in terms of running their data centers, and it also reduces space and reduces noise.
Michael Bird (08:49):
Yeah.
Clesmie Burden (08:49):
So now all of a sudden your data center environment can be smaller, more efficient, more performant, and quite frankly more pleasant with the reduction in noise.
Michael Bird (08:57):
Yeah, very much so. Let's talk about cloud. There were a whole heap of announcements around GreenLake, so let's just quickly play a clip.
Antonio Neri (09:05):
Today, more than 37,000 customers use HPE GreenLake cloud for their hybrid cloud needs. In the last 24 months, we've thoughtfully enhanced the capabilities of hybrid by design inside our HPE GreenLake cloud, adding two critical cloud-native services, the first one, ITOps and the second, DevOps through the acquisition of OpsRamp and Morpheus data. OpsRamp AI-driven incident and response management functions enables autonomous IT operations. It takes massive amount of inbound telemetry, then uses that information along with AI to find the signal in the noise, identified issues and propose or even automate resolution.
(10:01):
With deep integration into dozen of common tools and multiple clouds, Morpheus can fully automate the end-to-end provisioning and lifecycle management of traditional and cloud-native workloads. Together they can expand the capabilities of HPE GreenLake under multiple clouds and multiple IT vendors to help customers accelerate cloud operating model adoption. It is the true foundation of an exciting new solution I'm announcing here today in Europe. The virtualization landscape is shifting.
(10:40):
We have heard from many of you that you need more flexibility, freedom from lock-in and more value. HP stands ready to help with a solution that puts you, our customers, in control. So introducing HPE VM Essentials utilizing Morpheus software, HPE VM Essentials provides a unified VM management experience, which means you can manage existing VMware workloads or the new HPE VM Essentials hypervisor with a simplified experience across both stacks.
(11:23):
Not only does HPE VM Essentials offer more choice and flexibility, it is also a non-ramp to the full Morpheus hybrid cloud management solution. Another area of innovation we are expanding today is to address data security and sovereignty needs. Data sovereignty is no longer just a regulatory requirement, it is a business imperative for regulated industries such as government, healthcare providers and defense entities.
(11:55):
And in response to that, today we are introducing the option for disconnected management for HPE Private Cloud solutions for a fully air-gapped management option for you. HPE has enabled and authorized HPE partner-ready vantage partners within specific geographies across Europe and regulated industries to deliver sovereign private cloud services that address local, regional and industry-specific regulations powered by HPE GreenLake.
Michael Bird (12:33):
So Clesmie, what do these announcements around GreenLake and other cloud technologies do and how do they fit into HPE's overall plans?
Clesmie Burden (12:42):
Yeah, ultimately I think that there were a few announcements made around the GreenLake cloud platform, one of which was HPE VM Essentials.
Michael Bird (12:51):
Yeah.
Clesmie Burden (12:51):
Which is extremely relevant in the market today. Customers are exploring virtual machine options and HPE has announced that we have the availability of an option for our customers to consider with a KVM-based virtualization platform that they can then use alongside their existing virtual estate and then ultimately move to optimizing over time and driving down costs, improving performance and developer experience. I think the second announcement, or reiteration, if you will, on the GreenLake cloud platform, was reinforcing recent acquisitions that we made to really bring hybrid to life, which are Morpheus and OpsRamp.
(13:30):
Now on the Morpheus side, we're really trying to improve the developer experience and bring a cloud feel to the way developers work and spin up workloads through an automated provisioning capability. And then from an OpsRamp perspective, it's all about IT operations efficiency, driving an automated IT operations landscape so that way you reduce alerting, you can simplify your management of your hybrid estate, not just your on-prem environment, but also your public clouds and your co-location and edge environments as well.
Michael Bird (14:00):
Yeah.
Clesmie Burden (14:00):
So a couple of announcements made around the GreenLake cloud platform, and I think they're all really exciting.
Aubrey Lovell (14:05):
Thanks to both of you, Michael and Clesmie really interesting and exciting conversation and there's more to come in just a couple of minutes.
Michael Bird (14:15):
Yes, that is true because right now it is time for, today I learned, the part of the show where we take a look at something happening in the world that we think you should know about. Aubrey, what have you got for us?
Aubrey Lovell (14:27):
Well, Michael, we all know that seat belts save lives, and now they could be going one click further. Researchers in Singapore have been experimenting with seat belts as a wearable tech, just like your smartwatch, these smart belts can give vehicles or aircraft a glimpse into the health state and concentration levels of the person in control. The tech isn't as simple as it might sound though.
(14:49):
Normal heart rate sensors can't work effectively through layers of clothing. However, the breakthrough here is in a new biosensor woven in a network across the fabric of the seatbelt. The sensors amplify biological signals by guiding radio waves along its path. It can not only read respiration and heart rate through fabric, but can also tune out external vibrations in a range of frequencies caused by road noise or mechanical operation. The development published in the journal Nature Electronics could lead to an exciting travel safety revolution, and that's pretty cool.
Michael Bird (15:22):
Yeah, that is really, really cool. That's going to be completely revolutionary.
Aubrey Lovell (15:26):
Right. Now it's time to return to our analysis of Antonio Neri's HPE Discover Barcelona keynote with the able assistance of Clesmie Burden.
Michael Bird (15:39):
All right, Clesmie, we're going to tackle one more area, artificial intelligence. It's a small one, it's a small easy topic to quickly cover off.
Clesmie Burden (15:47):
Easy.
Michael Bird (15:47):
Obviously, AI got quite a lot of airtime in Antonio's keynote. So here is a quick clip from that keynote.
Antonio Neri (15:54):
Our first news builds on what we shared in June with our HPE Private Cloud AI announcement, an expanded collaboration with Deloitte. Deloitte is teaming with HPE to bring AI solutions to market quickly, implementing HPE Private Cloud AI with Deloitte's existing AI capabilities. Deloitte's industry experience with a co-developed private cloud for AI by HPE and NVIDIA provide businesses of all sizes with a ready-to-deploy AI solution tailored for their industry-specific use cases.
(16:35):
HPE Private Cloud AI can be deployed across Deloitte's NVIDIA power solutions, including AI Factory as a Service, Hybrid By Design, C-Suite AI, and the Quartz AI suite. In addition to our collaboration with Deloitte, in September we introduced the UNLEASH AI partner program to grow our ecosystem and expand customer's ability to address more AI use cases with HPE Private Cloud AI. UNLEASH AI now connects AI customers with access to cutting-edge software vendors for RAG applications, AI power software development, video analytics, and solutions for building safe and secure generative AI systems.
(17:27):
But this is just the beginning. HPE is a leader partner to help enterprise harness the power of AI. As the technology continue to radically change the current landscape and unlocks countless possibilities for many organizations. We will continue to add even more partners and AI use cases to deploy with our HPE Private Cloud AI. One of the reasons our Private Cloud for AI is so unique is because of the experience we delivered through HPE GreenLake cloud.
Michael Bird (18:01):
So Clesmie, what were your thoughts overall on how AI was covered in the keynote?
Clesmie Burden (18:07):
I was refreshingly surprised by the candid feedback that we heard from our executives, not just laying out the opportunity that AI presents particularly for the enterprise, along the lines of improved employee productivity, streamlined operations, or even the creation of new business models. They also confronted the challenges that customers must accept and account for in their AI adoption journey to set themselves up for success.
(18:35):
And those challenges or roadblocks, if you will, are around people and their skills. It's around getting the right data strategy, data architecture, and mobilizing that data towards your AI models. They talked about the importance of architectures and our ability to simplify that, to drive improved time to value for our customers. And then lastly, use case prioritization. Once you have a strategy and a vision for what AI can be for your organization, you then have to prioritize the use cases that you adopt, to bring that vision to life as fast as possible. So I thought it was a great session.
Michael Bird (19:09):
So with all that in mind, is AI the glue that holds the whole thing together at this point? Are we starting to see technology converging around AI?
Clesmie Burden (19:17):
Absolutely. I think AI is one of those unique workloads where every single piece of the puzzle must be assembled in order to make the picture clear. And you think about this event in whole, we have three major segments that we're covering, which are networking, hybrid cloud and AI. And the unique thing is hybrid cloud and networking have direct applicability to success in AI. So AI is the ultimate workload that can augment and enhance all other aspects of an organization.
Michael Bird (19:50):
Okay, so finally, Clesmie, the question that we always ask at the end of this podcast, why should organizations be paying attention to HPE Discover 2024? Why should they care and what does it mean for them?
Clesmie Burden (20:03):
Well, obviously maybe I'm biased here, but I think they should absolutely care because at these events, we are addressing real business challenges. We are bridging the gap between business ambitions and technology capability and giving customers practical plans that they can use to transition themselves into their next version of an organization.
(20:24):
We addressed common issues around AI and its challenges, which we briefly discussed earlier in this podcast episode. We discussed challenges around rationalizing your virtualization estate and optimizing your run times. We address real challenges around IT operation's efficiency, and we also talk a lot about partnerships and building end-to-end solutions for our customers across HPE's ecosystem of product services and strategic alliances to drive value for organizations.
Michael Bird (20:54):
Amazing. Clesmie, thank you so much for your time, and thank you so much for joining us on Technology Now.
Clesmie Burden (21:01):
Thank you. Thank you.
Aubrey Lovell (21:02):
Amazing. Thanks Michael and Clesmie, and I hope you enjoy the rest of the show. And you can find more on the topics discussed in today's episode in our show notes. Okay. Well, we're getting towards the end of the show, which means it's time for this week in history, a look at monumental events in the world of business and technology, which has changed our lives. Michael, over to you.
Michael Bird (21:24):
Well, the clue last week was it's 1923, and this invention stopped us all in our tracks. Aubrey, did you get it?
Aubrey Lovell (21:34):
I was thinking about trains, but I don't think that's what it is. What you got?
Michael Bird (21:39):
I was thinking about trains, but I always think about trains anyway. It was not about trains. It was of course the invention of the automatic traffic light, this week 101 years ago.
Aubrey Lovell (21:50):
Wow.
Michael Bird (21:50):
Yeah, yeah. It's kind of hard to believe that it took decades between the invention of the automobile and the invention of the stoplight, or at least one which didn't require a human to change the colors. Now, the inspiration came to an American man called Garrett Morgan, who witnessed a crash between a vehicle and a horse-drawn carriage, and decided that there must be a better way to police junctions. He created the Morgan traffic light signal before selling on the patent to manufacturers for $40,000, around $740,000 today. The technology immediately caught on by coming widespread globally throughout the 1920s and 1930s. Pretty cool, hey?
Aubrey Lovell (22:29):
It really is. That's pretty amazing. But what's even more amazing is it's over a hundred years old and some people still don't know how it works when they drive.
Michael Bird (22:38):
This is very, very true, Aubrey. Very, very true.
Aubrey Lovell (22:41):
Awesome. And the clue for next week, it's 1895, and this will have quite the impact on science.
Michael Bird (22:49):
Ooh, it's worth saying, the will was in sort of brackets, wasn't it? The will is the emphasis.
Aubrey Lovell (22:56):
This will. Yeah.
Michael Bird (22:56):
Okay.
Aubrey Lovell (22:58):
That brings us to the end of Technology Now for this week. Thank you to our guest, Clesmie Burden, HPE chief of staff for global sales. And to you, our listeners, thank you so much for joining us.
Michael Bird (23:09):
Technology Now is hosted by Aubrey Lovell and myself, Michael Bird. And this episode was produced by Sam Datta-Paulin and Alicia Kempson-Taylor with production support from Harry Morton, Zoe Anderson, Alison Paisley, and Alyssa Mitri.
Aubrey Lovell (23:23):
Our social editorial team is Rebecca Wissinger, Judy-Ann Goldman, Katie Guarino. And our social media designers are Alejandra Garcia, Carlos Alberto Suarez, and Amber Maldonado.
Michael Bird (23:35):
Technology Now is a Lower Street production for Hewlett Packard Enterprise, and we'll see you the same time, the same place, next week. Cheers.