Clarence Reynolds, TelecomTV (00:05):
Telecom infrastructure is undergoing a significant transformation driven by advances in 5G Edge computing and artificial intelligence. Fernando Castro, Kristin, vice president and general manager of telco infrastructure at Hewlett Packard Enterprise joins us to explore how strategic partnerships and tech innovation are reshaping network evolution. Fernando, thank you for joining us today.

Fernando Castro Cristin, HPE (00:30):
Thank you for the opportunity.

Clarence Reynolds, TelecomTV (00:34):
I was wondering how is HPE's partnerships strategy delivering value to telco operators?

Fernando Castro Cristin, HPE (00:42):
So partnership is part of HPE's DNA, and of course in the telco space, it's even enhanced by the longevity of the partnership that we have. I'm talking about the naps of course. Nokia, Ericsson, Samsung, Avenir, all the different Ns that are key players in the market, but also the technology providers like Intel, md, arm, Nvidia. It's a key link that we have to create in between all these technology partners and to make sure that this is relevant. We also include partnership with the customers themselves. We have a set of customers that are extremely eager to provide their feedback and to partner with us into the engineering of our own platforms. And this is really the ecosystems that we want to build. So partnership, it's a big world. It's a big world and a big world, sorry. But it is something that we are passionately driving. It's something that is key element of our strategy. We put resources, we invest in it, and that's really important to make sure that we are at the end, relevant to the market, relevant for the customers, and that we do what has to be done and not what we believe only us that is the right thing to do.

Clarence Reynolds, TelecomTV (02:11):
How is HPE continuing to invest in transformation and differentiate itself? To maintain a competitive edge in telco

Fernando Castro Cristin, HPE (02:20):
Investments is of course needed in every segment. Telco, it's investing in the people and in the technology of course, but also on the processes. It's an old thing, people, process and products, but it's even more real in the telecom space. We have regulations, we have people that have to have very specific knowledge. So we invest in the people. We have chief technologies that have been in the telco space since ever I would say, that are providing their knowledge and keep evolving into the new technologies that we are seeing in the market. We also invested massively in the lab and that lab is there to support our partners. I was mentioning earlier the importance of the partners. So we are doing certifications for the partners. We are accelerating the innovation with the technology vendors from having more throughput to generate less consumption and to have the right platforms at the right performance. We do that with all the scope needed in telco, from Napps, compliancy, thermal chambers to put the systems at the edge of what they can deliver. And all that is driven by the knowledge we get from our partners and key customers and their requirements. So it's an evolution that is never ending. The investments we're doing are on the people on the technology, but it's driven by the partners that we have and the customers that we consider as partners too.

Clarence Reynolds, TelecomTV (04:10):
And Fernando, can you share HPE's view of the evolutionary journey from appliance? Ran to V, ran to Open, O Ran, and now AI in ran.

Fernando Castro Cristin, HPE (04:21):
So on top of just learning the alphabet, the AI ran it'ss a journey. It's a journey. But you mentioned open run Vera and all that is an evolution at the end. What do the operators need? They need to remove complexity as much as possible, reduce operational costs and find revenue streams. That's in general why V Run, open run, and AI run at the end will help there. Well, there is a need to differentiate versus the OTT. So over the top players, there is a need to be able to have inferencing applications that will drive revenue by processing the data at the edge, there is a need to make sure that the network APIs that are the latest news are well controlled, well managed, but most importantly also provide regulation and security guarantees. So all that, it's a journey and AI run. And our investment in the AI Run Alliance is to make sure that we build that in the right way.

(05:40):
And open run is the structure that will allow the operators to start building a run infrastructure that will not just deliver what has to be delivered, which is the access to the radio, but also we'll start transforming itself as being an IT modern secure IT environment that will host applications. And those applications through AI will be able to generate revenue. And if you want to have AI in your run, you cannot do it with a traditional way. You have to do it in a data center mode. An open run is the step to be able to execute that in the future. Open run is key, not for itself, but for the future and for the implementation of AI run. And to learn how to make sure that this is compatible with the main goal, which is providing access to the run.

Clarence Reynolds, TelecomTV (06:42):
Well Fernando, thank you for sharing your insights with us today.

Fernando Castro Cristin, HPE (06:46):
Thank you very much.