HPE’s Discover 2024 event keynote took place at the Sphere in Las Vegas, which seemed like the perfect setting to say we’ve seen the future. As the.
HPE’s Discover 2024 event keynote took place at the Sphere in Las Vegas, which seemed like the perfect setting to say we’ve seen the future. As the first corporate speech to be held within the domed wonder, HPE had the unique opportunity and challenge to rethink how big event keynotes can be done. I’m pleased to report that they did a great job of demonstrating how companies can leverage the unique venue to their advantage.
Accompanied by some of the awe-inspiring clips from the Sphere’s «Postcard from Earth» experience, impressive original graphics, rumble-seat enhanced customer videos, and massive images of their own, HPE CEO Antonio Neri managed to deliver a compelling and informative presentation that few attendees are likely to forget.
Part of the impact, of course, is because attending most anything in the Sphere is pretty compelling. It’s also an absolute textbook example of Marshall McLuhan’s infamous comment that «the medium is the message», and there was certainly concern that the message could have been lost in the new medium that the Sphere represents. Nevertheless, Neri’s keynote managed to kick off HPE’s customer and partner event in a big way and in a manner that allowed the company to announce its news and provide some interesting context around it.
I have no doubt that we’re going to be seeing a lot more Sphere keynotes over the next few years. Like it or not, it is the keynote of the future.
The other aspect of the future that HPE discussed during the keynote is bringing generative AI capabilities into customers’ environments. While most companies are still doing the majority of their AI workloads in the cloud – if they’ve started at all – there’s growing interest in doing more of these efforts internally where many organizations’ most important data still remains.
HPE is moving in this direction with offerings designed to tap into this growing trend. Neri had Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang join him onstage for an extended conversation to help launch the company’s new Nvidia AI Computing by HPE initiative and the HPE Private Cloud AI offering.
