Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) announced a $1.2 billion order from cloud provider Vultr for its new AMD Helios AI networking platform, marking an early commercial success. The deal, revealed during HPE’s Networking Investor Day, includes scale-up switching and software components. This order is a key test for HPE’s strategy to grow its AI networking business, with the company raising its fiscal 2027 networking revenue growth forecast to the high teens to low 20% range, up from 14% to 17%, according to fortune.com.
The order highlights HPE’s efforts to convert strong demand into revenue amid supply constraints. Rami Rahim, HPE’s executive vice president and general manager of networking, noted that orders grew 3.5 times faster than revenue in the third quarter, indicating supply availability limited sales. To address this, HPE doubled its networking supply-purchase commitments to secure capacity and reduce backlog. The $1.2 billion Vultr order represents HPE’s first for the AMD Helios platform, though the company has not disclosed the breakdown of the order across networking, compute, software, and services segments, per fortune.com.
This deal underscores the growing importance of AI infrastructure in the networking sector. HPE’s acquisition of Juniper Networks aims to expand its AI networking capabilities and margin potential. The $1.2 billion order from Vultr is part of a broader trend, with HPE expecting cumulative AI networking orders to exceed $3 billion in fiscal 2026, surpassing its previous $2.5 billion to $3 billion guidance. This positions HPE alongside other major players investing heavily in AI hardware and software to meet increasing cloud demand, according to fortune.com.
HPE’s shares rose about 4% following the announcement. The company’s next milestone will be converting these orders into shipments and revenue, testing the durability of AI networking as a growth driver. The fiscal 2027 outlook and the $3 billion cumulative AI networking orders forecast reflect HPE’s confidence in scaling this segment, as detailed at its Networking Investor Day event this week, per fortune.com.