Hewlett Packard Enterprise announced new networking, compute hardware, cloud operations software, and financing updates for service providers at MWC26. The developments focus on meeting new demands created by artificial intelligence reshaping network design, from data centers to edge environments.

AI adoption is driving increased traffic into AI data centers, accelerating investment by hyperscalers and neocloud providers. In these environments, ultra-low latency and high reliability are essential for delivering AI as a service.

To address these changes, HPE is expanding its Juniper-based PTX routing portfolio with new PTX12000 modular routers supporting dense 800G connectivity, scalable to 1.6 terabits per second. They also introduced a new line of PTX10002 fixed-form routers for building AI networks and connecting data centers. These routers utilize Juniper Express 5 silicon, emphasizing throughput, deep buffering, and power efficiency.

AE Natarajan, HPE Executive Vice President, stated that customers are building larger, geographically distributed GPU clusters, making the network central to AI growth. He noted strong demand for the PTX12000 platform, with telcos making significant investments in AI networking fabrics and sovereign clouds.

The Express 5 Silicon, acquired through Juniper Networks, offers approximately 49% more power efficiency than the previous generation. PTX10002 systems show up to a 54% improvement over earlier platforms. This silicon includes inline MACsec for integrated security and advanced load balancing and quality of service algorithms crucial for handling AI network congestion without packet drops.

HPE is also updating Juniper Routing Director to be agentic AI-ready, enabling integration with customer-built AI copilots for automating network operations and speeding up troubleshooting.

On the compute side, HPE is introducing new ProLiant platforms for service providers, including the Compute EL9000 chassis and EL12 Gen12 servers, designed for higher network traffic density for AI and 5G workloads. Select ProLiant servers will integrate Juniper’s cloud-native routing software, combining routing and compute for radio access network deployments.

HPE is expanding its CloudOps Software as a unified control plane for managing virtualization, containers, observability, automation, and operations across multicloud environments. This aims to simplify and reduce costs for service providers.

To support adoption, HPE Financial Services is launching a new 90/9 Advantage financing program offering deferred payments and low monthly lease options across HPE’s portfolio.