HPE Execs Tout Benefits Of New AI- And Security-Based Network Offerings

HPE executives say the products underscore the company’s dedication to ‘mission- critical networking.’

Hewlett Packard Enterprise unveiled several new networking products with baked-in AI and security features this week at the National Retail Federation Big Show ’25 in New York City.

While HPE touted the benefits of its new offerings for the retail sector, the new products are also a fit for midsize organizations in other industries, executives with HPE told MES Computing.

Here’s a rundown of HPE’s new products:

HPE Aruba Networking 100 Series Cellular Bridge: For retailers, “if you lose your broadband, if you lose your internet connection, how do you process credit card transactions?” Larry Lunetta, vice president of AP security and networking product marketing at HPE, posed to MES Computing.

That’s the problem HPE’s new cellular bridge was built to solve, HPE said. “We’ve introduced this bridge which allows stores to connect directly to the public cellular infrastructure, so they don’t lose [their] connection. It’s both redundancy and ... it’s a faster way to set up something like a pop-up store.

The cellular bridge can also be used by resource-strapped midmarket organizations as a way to create connection failover.

“You don’t have to wait for IT to deliver broadband connectivity ... Wi-Fi can be privatized in public cellular,” Lunetta said.

HPE Aruba Networking CX 8325H: The CX 8325H is a half-width, 18-port switch designed to fit into tight spaces. The switch allows stores (and other businesses) “to just plug it in,” Lunetta said. It also has no special power or cooling requirements, he added.

The CX 8325H also connects with the HPE ProLiant DL145 Gen11 server for edge computing. This small-form-factor server “carries a GPU punch so you can run AI solutions on it,” Lunetta said. Some retail customers use the server with video to monitor self-checkout transactions.

“That video goes to the local server where AI models analyze it and if there’s something not quite right [with the transaction, the system] can stop the transaction in real time,” Lunetta said.

HPE Aruba Networking 750 Series wireless access points: The 750 Series APs support the latest wireless networking standard, Wi-Fi 7. And of course, as Gayle Levin, product marketing lead for wireless at HPE Aruba Networking pointed out, Wi-Fi is backward- compatible, so these APs will support older Wi-Fi protocols. The 750 Series can also secure, process and deliver IoT data in real time to power AI retail and other applications.

MES Computing asked HPE about recent concerns by the federal government over the security of networking devices, for instance, the proposed ROUTERS Act, which stands for “Removing Our Unsecure Technologies to Ensure Reliability and Security Act,” was passed in the U.S. House of Representatives in September 2024. The act seeks to mandate studies on wireless networking devices in the name of national security. Lunetta spoke about the provisions HPE takes to secure its networking products.

“We spend a lot of time on the security of the supply chain. We make sure that any parts that are in the product, we know what they are. Plus, we build in technology to reduce and eliminate the ability to tamper with [the products],” he explained.

“We manufacture in places that the government would consider reasonably safe from a security perspective,” he said.

HPE Aruba Networking Central AI Insights: Central AI Insights helps retailers with their curbside operations by optimizing Wi-Fi deployed outdoors and detects anomalous IoT behavior that could be associated with security breaches.

HPE also updated its Aruba Networking Central IoT Operations dashboard to include third-party applications from its retail technology partners.

While HPE’s announcements focused on retailers, Lunetta and Levin said that the products are applicable across all sorts of industries.

“Mission-critical networking is really the core of what we do,” Lunetta said.