HPE is hoping that AI could reverse its dire fortunes of late, with the Silicon Valley stalwart pitching a host of services to help simplify the adoption of Artificial Intelligence.
HPE is not targeting just any AI, but narrowing the focus and specifically targeting deep learning. Looking to the human brain for inspiration, deep learning is the latest ‘cool’ emerging tech for enterprises who want to unlock the value of vast streams of data.
However – and this is where HPE comes in – many organisations are ill-equipped to implement such technology, with firms lacking in sophisticated hardware and software infrastructure, expertise, resources and integration capabilities required to assimilate different pieces of hardware and software to scale AI systems.
HPE, however, have a plethora of solutions for these infrastructure problems. First in the round of announcements is an integrated hardware and software solution, dubbed the Rapid Software Development for AI, which is purpose-built for high performance computing and deep learning applications.
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Based on the HPE Apollo 6500 system in collaboration with Bright Computing to enable rapid deep learning application development, this solution includes pre-configured deep learning software frameworks, libraries, automated software updates and cluster management optimized for deep learning and supports NVIDIA Tesla V100 GPUs.
Probably taking the prize for the most creative name is the second new offering of the four announced today – the HPE Deep Learning Cookbook. The Cookbook is essentially a set of tools to guide customers in selecting the best hardware and software environment for different deep learning tasks.
These tools help enterprises estimate performance of various hardware platforms, characterise the most popular deep learning frameworks, and select the ideal hardware and software stacks to fit their individual needs.
“We live in a world today where we’re generating copious amounts of data, and deep learning can help unleash intelligence from this data,” said Pankaj Goyal, vice president, Artificial Intelligence Business, Hewlett Packard Enterprise. 
“However, a ‘one size fits all’ solution doesn’t work. Each enterprise has unique needs that require a distinct approach to get started, scale and optimize its infrastructure for deep learning. At HPE, we aim to make AI real for our customers no matter where they are in their journeys with our industry-leading infrastructure portfolio, AI expertise, world-class research and ecosystem of partners.”
Although maybe a little late to the AI party and joining a host of other similar innovation centres, HPE also announced a new AI Innovation Centre. Designed for longer term research projects, the innovation center will bring together universities, enterprises and HPE researchers to collaborate on AI. The centers, located in Houston, Palo Alto, and Grenoble, will give researchers for academia and enterprises access to infrastructure and tools to continue research initiatives.
“Artificial intelligence has the ability to transform scientific data analysis, making predictions and surprising connections,” said Paul Padley, professor of physics and astronomy, Rice University.
“We are at a precipice where the AI revolution can now have a profound impact on reshaping innovation, science, education and society, at large. Access to the HPE AI innovation centers will help us continue to advance our research efforts in our journey to making academic progress by using the tools and solutions available to us through HPE.”
One centre was, however, not nearly enough with HPE also announcing enhanced Centers of Excellence.
The centre has been designed to assist IT departments and data scientists who are looking to accelerate their deep learning applications and realise better ROI from their deep learning deployments in the near term. It will also offer select customers access to the latest technology and expertise including the latest NVIDIA GPUs on HPE systems. The current CoE are spread across five locations including Houston; Palo Alto; Tokyo; Bangalore, India; and Grenoble, France.
