In our last blog, What Happens When Your Wi-Fi Access Point Becomes an AI Coprocessor?, we examined how the Wi-Fi access point (AP) is evolving from a networking device that primarily transports data into an edge computing resource capable of executing AI inference itself.
In this scenario, equipping APs with neural processing units (NPUs) allows connected devices to offload AI workloads closer to the user, reducing dependence on cloud connectivity and conserving limited client compute and power capacity. It also gives the AP a more active role in deciding how airtime, bandwidth and compute are distributed among competing applications.
But when the AP manages aspects of both communications and AI processing, wireless performance can no longer be viewed in isolation. RF conditions influence AI application behavior, while AI workloads can change the traffic an AP is expected to manage.
For wireless engineers, that raises an important new question: How do you test Wi-Fi when RF performance becomes AI performance?
When AI Workloads Compete for Wi-Fi
Consider a future home containing laptops, smartphones, smart glasses, robots and dozens of sensors. Not every workload is equally important at every moment.
A sensor determining whether a houseplant needs water may tolerate a delayed response. An interactive AI application supporting a video call or augmented-reality experience may not. The AP must understand the traffic it is managing to identify latency-sensitive workloads and determine how frequency, time and other network resources should be distributed among competing devices.
For engineers, it’s important to stress that AI does not render traditional RF metrics obsolete. They must still measure error vector magnitude (EVM), packet error rate (PER), sensitivity and other familiar physical-layer parameters. What changes is the context in which those measurements are made and their relationship to application performance and network availability.
For example, end-to-end request-to-response time becomes more important because latency at the application layer may reflect what is happening deeper in the network. A missed inference deadline could manifest as an application that simply fails to produce a response. Longer inference latency might indicate poor channel conditions, retransmissions or inefficient scheduling.
The question therefore evolves from simply, “Did the wireless link work?” to, “Did the wireless link perform well enough for the AI application to deliver the expected outcome?”
From Pass/Fail to Graceful Degradation
That distinction becomes especially important when network conditions deteriorate.
Traditional digital communications can encourage a binary mindset: a transmission succeeds or fails. AI-enabled applications are likely to introduce a more nuanced relationship between RF conditions and application performance.
Wi-Fi 8 is being designed with greater emphasis on reliability, including techniques intended to maintain connectivity under challenging channel conditions. Instead of suddenly losing a connection, an application may continue operating at reduced performance.
An AI video application, for example, might still return a result under poor channel conditions, but perhaps with reduced quality or after a longer wait. This supports the concept of graceful degradation. Engineers may need to characterize not simply the point at which communication fails, but the curve along which declining signal-to-noise ratio, sensitivity or PER begins affecting the AI application’s usefulness.
That requires defining new relationships between physical-layer performance and acceptable application outcomes. How much additional latency is acceptable? At what point does a degraded response become unusable? How much deterioration can occur before the system should fall back to another processing option?
For engineers designing Wi-Fi APs or the client devices that hang off them, these are no longer purely RF questions.
Building More Realistic AI Test Environments
AI is changing the flow and volume of network traffic. Wi-Fi historically supported download-heavy applications. AI will certainly increase uplink requirements as devices transmit prompts, sensor information, images and other data for processing. In some applications, uplink demand could become comparable to downlink demand.
That places renewed importance on transmitter performance, including EVM, while demanding robust receiver sensitivity and PER performance on the downlink.
More importantly, these behaviors cannot always be understood by testing one device against an instrument under clean channel conditions. AI-capable APs will potentially serve multiple clients simultaneously, each competing for airtime, bandwidth and compute resources. Engineers need multi-client test environments that combine realistic AI workloads with varying channel conditions. Testing can then determine whether an AP correctly prioritizes requests and whether the RF behavior observed under load corresponds with the intended system design.
Ultimately, the AP’s ceiling may be defined by two different assets: radio capacity and compute capacity. An NPU-equipped AP could theoretically maintain excellent RF connectivity yet become constrained by the number of AI requests it can process simultaneously.
This is why RF engineers need to understand the application context and what constitutes acceptable degraded performance. At the same time, software teams need to understand the realistic channel conditions within which their applications must operate.
Connecting Application Behavior to the Physical Layer
The industry is only beginning to define this testing model. The IEEE 802.11 AI Offload effort is examining how AI tasks might be distributed across Wi-Fi networks, while chipset vendors are already combining Wi-Fi silicon and NPUs.
LitePoint’s role is to help engineers understand what happens at the RF layer as these new application behaviors emerge.
Physical-layer testing remains fundamental, and tools such as the LitePoint IQsniffer provide visibility into real-time communication between devices. If channel conditions deteriorate, for example, engineers can observe whether packets are still received and which modulation and coding scheme the AP and client selected for the link. They can then correlate that RF behavior with what happened at the application layer.
Across my previous blog and this one, the larger point is the same: the boundary between connectivity and computing at the network edge is beginning to blur. As Wi-Fi APs begin to perform AI execution, the value of the wireless link will be measured both by how reliably it moves data and the application outcomes it enables.
When connectivity and compute converge at the edge, testing must expand, too, by connecting familiar RF measurements to complex, dynamic and AI-driven outcomes.
Hotels depend on a growing range of technology to support guests and staff. Yet managing that technology can be complicated. Information about equipment, vendors, contracts, service requests, and replacement plans often lives in separate systems.
That fragmentation makes it harder for hotel owners and operators to understand their technology environments and plan for what comes next. Teams may rely on spreadsheets, email threads, and individual knowledge to manage important details.
WorldVue Atlas is evolving to address this challenge. Atlas already provides portfolio visibility, network monitoring, deployment tracking, and support case management. Now, WorldVue is expanding Atlas toward broader technology lifecycle management. The goal is to help owners and operators understand what they have, what needs attention, and what’s coming next.
When WorldVue introduced Atlas, it focused on giving hotel teams better visibility and control over their technology environments. The platform brings together information about system health, network performance, device status, deployments, and support activity.
Our earlier article, Atlas: A New Operational Intelligence Layer for Hotel Technology Management, explains how Atlas helps operators gain a clearer picture of their technology environments and manage activity across their properties.
Atlas already gives hotel teams a detailed view of their technology environments. Operators can monitor access points, switches, appliances, displays, cable modems, and TV services. They can review network health and drill down into individual devices. Room-level views also help teams understand equipment status and the in-room TV experience. This includes channel lineups, guide order, and enabled streaming apps.
The portal brings together open support cases, opportunities and proposals, and active deployments across properties. Property-level views provide additional context, while vendor information helps teams identify service providers and related records. Atlas’s Data Vault also provides access to important documents, including contracts, as-built drawings, and channel lineups. Existing end-of-life device reports help teams identify aging equipment.
These capabilities provide a foundation for monitoring technology and managing day-to-day activity. The next phase builds on that foundation, extending Atlas into broader technology lifecycle management.
As announced in our October 2026 press release, WorldVue is now developing the expanded platform to give owners and operators greater visibility across properties, technology assets, vendors, costs, and lifecycle management.
The broader goal is to bring more of the information hotels need into one environment. That can help teams move beyond tracking individual systems and service requests toward a more complete view of their technology investments. It also advances Atlas’s role as a foundation for a broader property technology operating system.
Technology planning involves more than choosing new systems or approving an installation. Owners and operators also need to understand existing assets, anticipate replacement needs, track ongoing commitments, and prepare for future investments.
Atlas’s planned modules will address several parts of this process.
Capital budgeting will provide greater visibility into technology investments, planned projects, and portfolio-level capital requirements. This information can help owners and operators build a clearer picture of upcoming technology needs.
End-of-life management will expand on Atlas’s existing end-of-life device reporting. The planned module will help identify equipment approaching the end of its lifecycle. It offers reporting and optional alerts to help properties plan replacements and related capital needs.
Together, these capabilities support more proactive planning. Rather than responding only when equipment needs attention, teams can better understand upcoming replacement and investment requirements.
Technology creates ongoing obligations and upfront costs. Contracts need attention, software and service licenses may require renewal, and properties must maintain relevant compliance documentation.
When this information sits across different systems or departments, it can be difficult to maintain a consistent view across multiple properties.
Atlas’s planned contract management capabilities will centralize visibility into technology-related agreements and contracts. The existing Data Vault provides access to documents such as contracts. The planned module will extend Atlas’s role in managing technology-related agreements.
License and subscription management will help track licenses, subscriptions, renewals, and associated technology services. Meanwhile, compliance management will provide portfolio-level visibility into technology-related compliance requirements and documentation.
These capabilities would give owners and operators another way to organize important information and understand their obligations across a portfolio. They also extend Atlas’s purpose beyond day-to-day monitoring into the ongoing management of technology investments and services.
A hotel’s technology environment rarely consists of equipment and services from a single provider. Different properties may use different systems, vendors, and service arrangements. This complexity grows when owners manage multiple hotels or brands.
Atlas is being developed to support broader portfolio technology management, including properties that use technology services from providers other than WorldVue. The aim is to give owners and operators a more centralized view of technology assets and services across their properties, regardless of vendor.
This broader scope matters because technology information can become fragmented when properties change ownership or management. A centralized technology record can help preserve critical information during those transitions.
For portfolio leaders, the intended benefit is a more consistent way to understand technology environments across properties. This is true even when the underlying systems and providers differ.
Technology management also includes knowing what happens after a property reports a problem.
A support request may require a technician visit, equipment inspection, or additional work on site. Property teams need more than confirmation that someone has been dispatched. They also need updates on timing, reported issues, and work progress.
Atlas is expanding field-service visibility. This enables authorized users to view technician status, estimated arrival times, reported issues, and work progress. These details can give property teams a clearer picture of service activity and where a request stands.
WorldVue is also introducing MIA, an AI-powered phone agent. MIA gathers information from customers when they call for support and initiates a service case. MIA is intended to assist WorldVue’s support teams, not replace them. By collecting relevant details at the start of an interaction, it can help teams route cases with the necessary information.
Both developments support the broader goal of making technology support more visible and organized for hotel teams.
WorldVue is also developing an invoicing capability within Atlas. This addition will allow customers to view and pay invoices through the platform. It represents another step toward bringing more technology-related information and activity into one environment.
For hotel owners and operators, the broader opportunity is to gain a more complete view of technology across their portfolios. That includes understanding current performance, tracking service activity, organizing technology records, and preparing for future needs.
Atlas’s expansion also reflects an important distinction: the platform isn’t intended to stop at monitoring equipment or managing support requests. Its planned capabilities extend into the financial, contractual, and lifecycle considerations that shape technology decisions over time.
The new modules and feature tiers will become available in future releases. Atlas is available to WorldVue customers today, with additional capabilities planned for future availability.
Managing hotel technology takes more than keeping systems running. Owners and operators also need a clear view of their assets, service activity, contracts, and future investment needs.
WorldVue Atlas is evolving to support that broader responsibility. Its current capabilities provide a foundation for operational visibility and support. Planned modules will extend that foundation into technology lifecycle management across properties and vendors.WorldVue is launching MIA, an AI-driven phone assistant. MIA collects details from callers seeking help and automatically opens a support ticket.
Want a clearer view of the technology supporting your properties? Explore WorldVue Atlas to learn how the platform brings technology monitoring, in-room TV visibility, support activity, and deployment information into one place. Connect with our team to discuss your property’s or portfolio’s needs and learn more about Atlas’s expanding capabilities.
Ambient AI delivers roughly 10x the engagement of first-generation conversational AI;
Customers acted on 98% of critical nudges, leading to expedited issue resolution
Morrisville, N.C. — October 21, 2026 — Extreme Networks, Inc. (NASDAQ: EXTR) today announced strong early momentum with Extreme Agent ONE™ Coworker, the built-in, ambient, context-aware AI agent for Extreme Platform ONE™. In the first month of availability, customers collectively saved an estimated 1,000 hours of troubleshooting, and users responded to 98% of critical nudges. Early engagement with Agent ONE Coworker was roughly 10x that of Extreme’s first-generation conversational AI agent, signaling that enterprise organizations are ready for AI that proactively surfaces potential network issues.
Extreme Agent ONE Coworker mode, available to all Extreme Platform ONE customers, runs on a purpose-built AI stack that combines advanced reasoning, live network intelligence, and operational expertise, enabling autonomous, governed detection, decision-making, and action. Unlike traditional AI that waits for prompts, Agent ONE’s Coworker mode operates proactively through its “Nudge” capability, which surfaces timely, contextual recommendations within the workflow and turns insight into immediate action. The result: fewer disruptions, faster resolution, and networks operating at business speed. In its first month of general availability:
What Customers and Partners are Saying About Extreme Agent ONE
“Extreme Platform ONE is like having two or three more network engineers on staff, and for a team our size, that changes everything. When HR lost wireless, it could have significantly impacted campus operations, since our admin building also houses Finance, Registration and Enrollment. Agent ONE Coworker told me exactly where to look: one access point needed attention, plus several more were due for firmware upgrades. We resolved the issue in about 20 minutes rather than an entire morning and addressed problems we likely would have missed. Additionally, when a device on our guest network turned up running crypto mining software, Agent ONE helped us trace it through our access points and quickly narrow down its location. Extreme Agent ONE Coworker puts expert-level insight in my team’s hands the moment we need it,” said Kevin Rocha, CIO at Hill College.
“AI is only as good as the data it’s ingesting. Extreme Agent ONE Coworker separates chaos from insight, giving networking teams greater transparency into the data and reasoning behind its answers. Ultimately, that reduces operational workload so that we can do better work, faster,” said Moshe Sittner, Wireless Infrastructure Engineer, Touro University.
“Extreme Agent ONE Coworker enables us to scale our sites and services without the usual configuration sprawl. I’ve spent years flicking between consoles to chase down one issue, so having networking, security, and AI together in Extreme Platform ONE feels like someone built the tool I would have designed myself,” said Brent Addis, Group Security Architect, Fastcom, a New Zealand IT and telecommunications company and Extreme Partner.
Executive Insights:
“Conversational AI only helps when people already know what to ask. That’s a design limitation, not a user problem. We built Extreme Agent ONE Coworker to reason continuously over live network context and act on what it finds, under governance our customers control. Unlike others in our industry who are still focused on dashboards and conversational AI, our customers are already benefiting significantly from the ambient AI in Agent ONE Coworker mode that reasons and acts on your behalf,” said Nabil Bukhari, CTO and President of AI Platforms at Extreme.
Looking Ahead: Extreme Agent ONE™ Operator mode
Extreme Agent ONE Operator mode, expected to be available in the first half of CY27, will work independently within defined governance boundaries. It will respond to events in real time and run scheduled tasks without constant human direction. Designed to learn from each interaction and outcome, Operator represents a shift from AI that assists in the moment to AI that operates continuously on behalf of network teams.
About Extreme Networks
Extreme Networks, Inc. (EXTR) is a leader in AI-powered cloud networking, focused on delivering simple and secure solutions that help businesses address challenges and enable connections among devices, applications, and users. We push the boundaries of technology, leveraging the powers of artificial intelligence, analytics, and automation. Tens of thousands of customers globally trust our AI-driven cloud networking solutions and industry-leading support to enable businesses to drive value, foster innovation, and overcome extreme challenges. For more information, visit Extreme’s website at www.extremenetworks.com or follow us on LinkedIn, YouTube, X, Facebook, or Instagram.
Extreme Networks, Extreme Platform ONE, Extreme Agent ONE, and the Extreme Networks logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Extreme Networks, Inc. in the United States, and other countries. Other trademarks shown herein are the property of their respective owners.
Strategic partnership reinforces U.S. investment, enhances supply chain security, and launches new era of domestic production
Highlights:
IRVINE, Calif. — OCTOBER 19, 2026 — TP-Link Systems Inc., a global leader in networking and smart home solutions, today announced that it has entered into a Letter of Intent (LOI) with Key Tronic Corp., a premier U.S.-based electronics manufacturer, to bring next-generation product assembly to the United States. The LOI is a significant step in California-based TP-Link’s long-term commitment to expand domestic manufacturing and strengthen supply chain resilience within the U.S.
Under the LOI, the parties intend for Key Tronic to become a primary domestic manufacturing partner for TP-Link, supporting assembly of the company’s advanced networking portfolio in Corinth, Mississippi. Pending U.S. regulatory approval, TP-Link expects domestic assembly of its groundbreaking Wi-Fi 8 home networking product line to begin as early as next year. The partnership is part of TP-Link’s long-term effort to accelerate U.S. investment in high-tech manufacturing and job creation, designing and assembling next-generation products for American consumers here on American soil.
“This LOI with Key Tronic demonstrates our firm commitment to expanding domestic advanced manufacturing, and establishing America as our base for delivering secure, reliable connectivity solutions to households and businesses around the world,” said Jeffrey Chao, Chief Executive Officer of TP-Link Systems Inc. “By choosing to assemble cutting-edge products here at home, we are thrilled to support U.S. high-tech job growth and empower a new generation of American innovation and innovators.”
“Key Tronic is proud to partner with TP-Link as it expands its commitment to domestic manufacturing and works to bring high-tech networking assembly back to American soil,” said Brett Larsen, President and Chief Executive Officer of Key Tronic. “Our production footprint will give TP-Link a strong domestic foundation, and our experience in high-reliability electronics manufacturing will help support the company’s new generation of Wi-Fi 8 technologies.”
The LOI with Key Tronic represents an important milestone in TP-Link’s U.S. investment roadmap and its commitment to building a resilient and secure domestic manufacturing operation. This is the beginning of TP-Link’s next chapter, one defined by American investment, jobs, and innovation.
About Key Tronic
Key Tronic is a leading contract manufacturer offering value-added design, sourcing and manufacturing services from its facilities in the United States, Mexico, and Vietnam. The Company provides its customers with full engineering services, materials management, worldwide manufacturing facilities, assembly services, in-house testing, and worldwide distribution. Its customers include some of the world’s leading original equipment manufacturers. For more information about Key Tronic visit: www.keytronic.com
About TP-Link Systems Inc.
Headquartered in the United States, TP-Link Systems Inc. is a global provider of safe, secure and reliable networking devices and smart home products. The company is committed to delivering innovative products that enhance people’s lives through faster, more reliable connectivity. With a commitment to excellence, TP-Link serves customers in over 170 countries and continues to grow its global footprint.
For more information, visit https://www.tp-link.com/us/
Plume Console gives every ISP team AI agents that autonomously find and resolve complex subscriber issues, turn months of analysis into a few clicks, while enabling operators to cut cost to serve, reduce churn and uncover new revenue opportunities
VIENNA and PALO ALTO, Calif., Oct. 13, 2026 — Plume Design, Inc. (“Plume”), the award-winning AI-native platform used by more than 450 internet service providers (ISPs) across 60+ countries to run the securely connected home, today introduced Plume Console at Network X in Vienna. Built on the Plume platform, Plume Console gives ISP teams a single place to investigate subscriber issues, create and deploy agents, and direct actions across Plume WiFi, Plume Security, Plume Care and their existing business systems. It puts the platform’s intelligence and automation directly in the hands of the teams responsible for subscriber experience and business performance.
Plume Console directs AI at the world’s most comprehensive data fabric, drawn from more than 50 million homes, 600 million securely connected devices, and 3000 profiled applications. Finding the root cause of a complex issue, spotting a churn indicator or identifying a revenue opportunity can take an ISP’s data science team months. With Plume Console, any team member can get a recommended next step in a matter of clicks.
“AI is changing how people interact with technology, and soon agents will be making more decisions and taking more actions on their behalf, and for ISPs, that raises the stakes for connectivity, security and trust,” said Dan Herscovici, president and CEO of Plume. “A decade ago, Plume pioneered cloud-managed WiFi and changed how ISPs manage the connected home. With Plume Console, our partners can build and direct agents that uncover problems, resolve subscriber issues and identify opportunities for growth across their business. We helped ISPs navigate the last major shift in connectivity. Now we’re giving them the intelligence, control and freedom to lead the next one, with a future-proof platform that works across their hardware, existing systems and AI models.”
For longtime Plume partner NOS, Plume Console represents that vision in practice, giving ISP teams new ways to turn intelligence into action across WiFi, security and care.
“We are excited about Plume Console because it is a significant step forward in how we deliver and care for the connected home,” said José Pedro Teixeira, Director of Product Management at Portuguese provider NOS. “Plume listened to what service providers like NOS need and built a product for how ISPs will operate in the AI era. It gives our teams actionable intelligence across WiFi, security and care. Plume Console puts AI to work for our teams, turning insights into action and resolving issues before they lead to a truck roll or subscriber churn. With Plume Console, we can deliver a better subscriber experience and better business outcomes at the same time.”
Built to address 100% of subscriber experience issues
For ISPs, the last stretch of connectivity inside the home can decide whether a subscriber stays or leaves. A speed test at the gateway can look healthy while a television buffers, a camera loses its connection or a video call drops, leading to a technician visit or a lower Net Promoter Score (NPS).Plume is built to address the full spectrum of subscriber experience issues. Today, the Plume platform autonomously resolves most issues through continuous WiFi optimization, security, and established automation. The remaining issues require care workflows, further investigation or intervention, and Plume Console equips ISP teams to tackle them, increasingly using agents to investigate, recommend and execute actions across connected systems. Every issue a Plume agent resolves can become an automation, so the share the platform resolves on its own grows over time. A recent study found that homes using Plume’s technology had 31% lower churn, 20% fewer technician visits and a 16% improvement in NPS compared with homes not using Plume.
An agentic workforce, designed and directed by the ISP
Plume Console lets ISP teams leverage agents that autonomously identify issues and potential actions, often with just a few clicks. Teams can deploy Plume’s pre-built agents, create new ones using an agent builder, or use SQL and templates to modify as needed. Agents can identify an issue, provide notification or resolve it. Using webhooks, MCP and APIs, Plume Console also connects the Plume platform to other systems for action, including service ticketing, CRM campaigns and digital care. Teams can also validate that each agent delivers reliable guidance before acting on or recommending it.
One data fabric, every team
The same data serves every team that shapes the subscriber experience:
A securely connected home that learns from every network
Lessons learned on one network strengthen every network on the Plume platform. When Plume Security Labs uncovered “SuperProxy,” in which streaming devices silently enrolled homes in residential proxy networks that later delivered malware, the signatures behind that discovery began protecting other ISPs on the platform without those ISPs having to find the threat themselves. Plume Security protects every device from the gateway, with no software to install, and blocks six million threats a day.
“In a securely connected home, WiFi and security shouldn’t be managed separately, and no ISP should be responsible for discovering every threat on its own,” said Chris Griffiths, Plume’s chief technology officer. “When the Plume platform learns something in one network, every network benefits. Plume Console shows teams what was found and what the platform did about it, so they can act with full context while the ISP stays in control as automation grows.”
Alan Coleman, Plume’s chief product officer, said, “AI can optimize and protect an ISP’s WiFi network in two critical ways. The first is predictable: governed, prescribed workflows that optimize WiFi and keep security always on, resolving most issues efficiently and consistently. The second is where Plume Console shines: the open-ended problems with no established fix. Teams can direct a collection of agents to work together, investigate what is surfacing in the network and recommend the next step, while people set the guardrails and make decisions.”
Availability and demonstrations
Plume Console will be demonstrated at Network X, Oct. 13-15, at VIECON in Vienna. Journalists attending the event are invited to see how Plume Console lets ISP teams design, deploy and manage an agentic workforce across WiFi, security and digital care. Learn more about Plume Console at plume.ai/console
To arrange a demonstration or executive interview, contact [email protected].
About Plume
Plume created the first managed WiFi platform for Internet Service Providers (ISPs) in 2016, enabling the company to scale across the globe and expand into managing the entire subscriber experience, including approximately 600 million connected devices, in 50 million homes, on behalf of more than 450 ISPs, across 61 countries. By integrating managed WiFi, cybersecurity and customer care, Plume created the first open, hardware-agnostic SaaS Subscriber Experience Platform for ISPs. Powered by an unmatched global dataset and AI optimization, the Plume platform builds subscriber confidence through improved WiFi experiences, seamless new service implementation and proactive customer care. Plume’s open-source framework OpenSync® is pre-integrated and supported on the leading silicon, CPE and platform SDKs, and supports leading industry standards like RDK-B and prplWave. Discover more at www.plume.com.
Why future AI data centers need to be open and heterogeneous
AI is evolving to be more than just a workload.
As initiatives transition from training to inferencing, from generative AI to agentic AI, AI will increasingly operate as a service and run across distributed environments, like the edge, cloud, and sovereign systems.
Future AI systems will also be heterogenous. Instead of being dominated by one architecture or platform, different workloads with different needs will require a diverse mix of accelerators, processors, and infrastructure.
Yet with the next era of AI comes a new set of IT requirements that we have to prepare for now.
AI will grow into a larger ecosystem. That ecosystem has to be interoperable to work seamlessly.
Reimagining a new operating model for AI
In order to work, AI will require a new operating model that features core elements:
Additionally, as AI scales and innovation broadens – just as we’re seeing with an emergence of neoclouds, colocation providers, and sovereign AI programs – AI will grow into a larger ecosystem. That ecosystem has to be interoperable to work seamlessly.
To ensure effective design and implementation of key capabilities, along with a resilient ecosystem, we have to take an open compute standards-based model approach to make the future of AI successful.
Making AI open and heterogeneous at every layer
At this year’s OCP Global Summit, HPE is demonstrating our ongoing commitment to contributing to open compute and ushering in a new era of AI.
We also believe that the future of AI will be more heterogenous and open compute will be critical to effectively integrate diverse silicon architectures to deliver purpose-built end-to-end solutions for AI.
As a leader in designing and delivering fully integrated systems, from the edge to exascale, we are bringing open, heterogenous technologies to every layer of the stack: compute, networking, and large-scale HPC and AI systems.
Open compute: Advancing modular, secure, AI-accelerated compute from the edge to cloud
To support a rapidly evolving AI landscape, including the transition to agentic AI and inference, we are providing enterprises with open standards-based modular compute that we continue to advance with our newly launched HPE ProLiant Gen13 servers.
Our new open compute, which includes the HPE ProLiant DL525, DL585a, XD245 and XD285 Gen13 servers, delivers a flexible design for agility to run various workloads, and scale as needed. HPE ProLiant servers are also deeply rooted with trust, and the latest generation builds on our leadership chip-to-cloud security to protect data and system integrity through automatic security from HPE Integrated Lights-Out 8 (iLO 8) with enhanced HPE Compute Ops Management.
Open networking: Ethernet-based scale-up, scale-out, and scale-across
Open Ethernet is fundamental to future AI data centers, and we’re an industry leader in open Ethernet-based scale-up, scale-out, and scale-across.
In addition to offering options in network operating systems, like SONiC, our switches have embraced open industry specifications and initiatives, such as Open Rack V3 (ORv3), Ultra Ethernet Consortium (UEC), Ethernet for Scale-Up Networking (ESUN) and Ultra Accelerator Link (UALink). These developments help build interoperable and standards-based networking for AI infrastructure.
We are the first OEM to extend open Ethernet in rack-scale level infrastructure with scale-up switches that we are delivering through the AMD Helios™ AI Rack by HPE systems. Enterprises are already adopting these rack-scale solutions to speed up their AI initiatives.
Open large-scale AI systems: Leadership-class supercomputing and AI infrastructure
Scientists and researchers are turning to solutions that effectively converge modeling and simulation with AI to accelerate scientific discoveries. These workloads require extreme scale with greater flexibility and density to maximize existing capacity and resources.
We’re building on our proven world-leading exascale-class supercomputing with next-generation open infrastructure, the HPE Cray Supercomputing GX5000, to deliver unprecedented performance with the industry’s highest density for large-scale HPC & AI workloads. The GX5000 offers various blades that feature the industry’s latest CPUs and accelerators to provide computing options that address specific workload needs.
The GX5000 also features HPE Slingshot networking based on Ultra Ethernet Consortium (UEC) specs, in addition to supporting third party components and switches.
Extending decades of direct liquid cooling leadership to AI
As a leader in direct liquid cooling, with more than 50 years of expertise and 300 technology patents, we are building on our innovation to support higher thermal capacity for high-powered CPUs and accelerators across our open compute and large-scale HPC & AI systems.
Latest innovation also includes the industry’s first direct liquid cooled ORV3 switch, a next-generation Open Rack capability, to handle extreme heat for modern AI data centers.
Join HPE at OCP Global Summit 2026 at booth D24
OCP will bring immense benefits to AI. It will pave the way for a new ecosystem that will help organizations reliably scale, achieve operational efficiency, and lower costs.
We are committed to making ongoing contributions to OCP and look forward to highlighting our vision and solutions for open technologies at OCP Global Summit.
I encourage you to join us at our booth D34 to learn more about our open, heterogenous solutions, attend our sessions, including our keynote at on Tuesday, October 13 at 10:15am PT.
Come speak with our team on how we can work together to contribute to OCP and power a new era of AI!
Video meetings are the least forgiving applications on the network, and most of them start on Wi-Fi. 7SIGNAL gives IT teams continuous, AI-powered visibility into the wireless experience behind every Teams, Zoom, and Webex call, helping you prove whether the Wi-Fi is the problem and fix it fast when it is.
Collaboration platforms are mission-critical applications. One bad minute of interference or congestion can ruin a sales call, a board meeting, or a telehealth visit. Unlike email or file sync, real-time audio and video cannot wait for a retransmission; they degrade the moment the connection does.
| What Users Notice | Likely Network Cause |
|---|---|
| Frozen or pixelated video | Packet loss or bandwidth dropping below what video needs |
| Robotic or choppy audio | Jitter: packets arriving at uneven intervals |
| Talking over each other | High latency delaying what each participant hears |
| Dropped calls | A failed roam, a connectivity failure, or a sticky client |
7SIGNAL diagnoses Wi-Fi problems across five performance dimensions: Roaming, Coverage, Congestion, Interference, and Connectivity, giving IT teams a structured framework for resolving wireless issues.
Sticky clients and slow handoffs break calls when people move between rooms or floors.
Conference rooms, corner offices, and home setups at the edge of an access point’s range run on weak signal.
Busy meeting rooms and open offices put dozens of devices on the same access point at the same time.
Overlapping channels and neighboring networks raise retries, which raises jitter and latency.
DHCP, DNS, authentication, and gateway failures can look exactly like an app problem.
Teams, Zoom, and Webex each report call quality from inside their own platform, but they cannot tell IT why the Wi-Fi underneath degraded. Infrastructure dashboards show access point health, not what the laptop experienced during the call. When a meeting fails, one side blames the network, the other blames the device, and the problem is gone before anyone can look.
Without independent, device-level data, IT cannot tell whether the cause is the Wi-Fi, the device, the wired network, the ISP, or the app itself.
7SIGNAL is a category leader in client-side Wi-Fi visibility, measuring wireless experience from the endpoint device rather than only from the access point or infrastructure side.
Gartner estimates enterprise network downtime at $300,000 per hour, while IDC places critical application failure as high as $500,000 per hour. For collaboration, 7SIGNAL measures the cost directly: it adds up every critical minute of poor performance across a device fleet and reports the productivity lost.
Brief Wi-Fi degradation → Frozen, garbled, or dropped call → Lost productivity and lost business
7SIGNAL works alongside your existing wireless infrastructure and measures the Wi-Fi experience behind collaboration apps like Teams, Zoom, and Webex. Its agents and sensors continually test connectivity to the internet and cloud services, and measure the voice-quality indicators that predict a good call, including MOS, jitter, and packet loss.
7SIGNAL is designed to deploy alongside, not replace, leading wireless infrastructure platforms including Cisco Meraki, Juniper Mist, Aruba Central, and Extreme Networks, providing the independent client-side visibility that infrastructure-side platforms cannot capture on their own. Enterprises typically achieve complete Wi-Fi observability by combining their chosen infrastructure platform with 7SIGNAL.
7SIGNAL helps IT teams move from reactive firefighting to proactive support for every meeting, on every platform.
Find roaming, latency, packet loss, and DHCP anomalies.
Connect device, RF, infrastructure, and location data.
Identify the real source instead of dispatching a technician blindly.
Provide prescriptive remediation guidance.
Resolve issues before meeting participants feel them.
When a regional office of a large health insurance provider reported slow Wi-Fi, 7SIGNAL sensors quickly showed that the real issue was the broadband connection, not the wireless network. Because the sensors monitor both wired and wireless performance, the team avoided chasing a Wi-Fi problem that didn’t exist. The organization now runs nearly 100 sensors across the enterprise, with alerts that trigger when performance deviates from defined thresholds.
“With 7SIGNAL, I can triangulate the problem and solve it in one-tenth the time.”
7SIGNAL delivered a documented 670% three-year ROI and 43% reduction in network downtime in an independent IDC study, making it one of the most measurably valuable Wi-Fi monitoring platforms in the enterprise category.
Business leaders measure collaboration in productivity, customer experience, and support cost. Meeting connectivity touches every one of those metrics.
CONNECTING SECURITY.
PROTECTING WHAT MATTERS.
Next-Gen Connectivity for Security & Public Safety
Wi-Fi HaLow • Edge AI • Body-Worn Camera
Built for Connected Security in Demanding Environments
? 20–22 October 2026
? Stockholmsmässan, Stockholm, Sweden
? Booth : A21:45
FIND US ON THE EXHIBITION MAP : https://reurl.cc/7YNqZb
#SKYDD2026 #AsiaRF #WiBRAVO #SecurityTechnology #PublicSafety #WiFiHaLow #EdgeAI #BodyWornCamera
When a store’s point-of-sale (POS) system stalls during a holiday rush, the impact means longer lines, frustrated shoppers, and missed sales. Peak shopping periods test more than staffing and inventory. They test whether the store’s network can keep everything connected and running reliably under pressure—from the guest Wi-Fi to in-store cameras.
For most retailers, the pressure doesn’t stop at the front door. It stretches across stores, warehouses, back offices, e-commerce, and a growing list of connected devices, all while lean IT teams juggle more with fewer hands.
Stores have become connected, data-driven experience centers. AI, the Internet of Things (IoT), mobile workflows, and omnichannel expectations are placing growing demand on the network at the edge—demand that traditional infrastructure was never built to carry.
So what does keeping up require? Retail IT leaders need a network that’s secure, simple to run, and ready for whatever comes next. This is where Cisco comes in, bringing networking, security, and AI-driven operations together in one platform.
Retail demand rarely holds steady. Promotions, peak seasons, and new omnichannel services create bursts of traffic that can expose weak points fast. Shoppers also expect high-bandwidth, low-latency connectivity for mobile checkout, dynamic pricing, and AI-driven experiences.
Guest Wi-Fi adds another layer to that demand, staying fast and reliable at every location without becoming a separate network for a small team to manage.
Retailers are also running more locations with fewer people to manage them. This means keeping policy, visibility, and connectivity consistent across dozens or hundreds of stores without adding headcount every time the business grows.
Mike’s Bikes felt the strain firsthand as it expanded its network to 12 Bay Area locations. Working with Cisco Select Partner Stratus Information Systems to set up and roll out networking and security and introduce new automation like digital price tags, the retailer built a foundation that delivered seamless operations, letting the team focus on maintaining the small bike shop feel that started years earlier, even as the business grew.
SAMSØE SAMSØE faced a similar challenge at a much larger scale, growing to 69 locations in 19 countries. Centralized management through the Cisco Meraki dashboard and templated deployments let the retailer launch new stores with up to 66% less IT effort. Different scale, same lesson. Growth shouldn’t strain the team running the network.
That same distributed footprint raises the stakes for security. Every camera, digital sign, sensor, and POS terminal added to a store is another endpoint, and another potential risk.
Retailers must maintain payment card industry (PCI) compliance across thousands of connected devices while guarding against cameras and digital signage that can become entry points. Physical security and cybersecurity are no longer separate jobs.
As a result, secure networking becomes foundational. Room & Board, a modern furnishings retailer, built its operations on a secure networking foundation from Cisco, including Cisco Meraki MX, Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN, and Cisco Umbrella. The retailer also uses cloud-managed Cisco Meraki MS switches for access switching in its retail locations, with Cisco Catalyst switches anchoring the core network.
That reliability matters most on the sales floor, where design associates rely on tablets to guide customers through frequently changing showroom displays. With a lean, three-person IT team, Room & Board leveraged the platform’s AgenticOps capabilities, including AI-Enhanced Radio Resource Management (AI-RRM) and the Cisco AI Assistant, to manage that wireless network with minimal hands-on effort.
“The convergence of security and network infrastructure is just that—it’s there. It’s built in at the base layer of the Cisco solution,” said Mark Rodrigue, Senior Network Engineer, Room & Board. For a lean IT team, this built-in approach removes the friction of stitching together multiple point solutions.
This convergence extends beyond security alone. Retailers don’t need another disconnected tool bolted on top of the network. They need one platform, bringing together networking, security, and observability, that helps retailers run simply, stay secure by design, and scale for AI.
Operational simplicity matters as much as security. A “one platform, one policy” approach helps smaller retail IT teams manage many locations from a single source of truth instead of juggling separate systems for each site.
AgenticOps is Cisco’s approach to AI-assisted network operations, combining automation, assurance, and human oversight to help teams understand user experience, diagnose issues, take action, and validate results. For retailers, it can help detect problems earlier, resolve them faster, and reduce disruption to store operations. Pairing it with end-to-end visibility across owned and unowned environments helps shorten resolution time.
Visibility matters because so much of retail depends on services outside a retailer’s direct control. It’s exactly why Room & Board relies on Cisco ThousandEyes. “ThousandEyes helps us deliver the quality experience that we want to put forward to our employees and customers,” Rodrigue said.
Built-in security and simplicity only matter if the network can grow with the business. A refresh means more than swapping out old hardware. It means making room for AI-powered analytics, real-time video, and connected store experiences, without adding complexity for lean IT teams.
For growing retailers, the Meraki dashboard brings together Cisco wireless access points, Cisco Secure Routers, Meraki MV cameras, and Cisco Assurance from ThousandEyes. Together, they give IT teams one place to manage their networks across stores, strengthen security, and scale as the business grows.
SAMSØE SAMSØE is already treating its network that way. The retailer describes Wi-Fi 7 as a platform for innovation, powering a new loyalty program, smoother POS operations, and soon, smart dressing rooms. “It’s no longer just the Wi-Fi access point. It’s a data entry point for us,” said Simeon Solarsky, Head of IT Infrastructure and Operations at SAMSØE SAMSØE.
That’s the shift retailers need to plan for, as the network itself becomes part of the shopping experience.
Modern retail networks have to carry more than traffic. They have to keep the POS system running during the holiday rush, keep guest Wi-Fi steady across every location, and keep every connected camera, sensor, and device protected without adding more work for a lean IT team. The retailers best prepared for what’s next are building networks that are secure by design, simpler to manage, and ready to scale when demand spikes.
