Since the Sphere opened in Las Vegas in September 2023, the experiential venue has played host to A-listers like U2, Dead & Company, John Mayer, and Bobby Weir. In June, Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) CEO Antonio Neri took the stage, making HPE Discover the first corporate event to host its keynote at the now iconic global entertainment venue. When describing the keynote, Forbes simply said, “Wow.” 

Big picture: Held June 17-20 at the Venetian Convention and Expo Center, Hewlett Packard Enterprise’s 2024 annual showcase technology event featured 200-plus HPE-specific tech demonstrations and partner exhibits spread across seven acres on the Las Vegas Strip, according to a LinkedIn post by HPE’s executive vice president Jim Jackson.

What HPE told us: “HPE Discover 2024 was a history-making moment for HPE,” Jason Newton, the vice president of global marketing at HPE, told Corporate Event News. “Not only did we want our customers and partners to better understand our AI strategy and Nvidia partnership, we wanted them to experience it. Our entire team knocked it out of the park, and the HPE community left the first-ever keynote at Sphere inspired by the opportunities they now see for their enterprise by partnering with HPE.”

Related: HPE DISCOVER 2024 WILL STAGE ITS KEYNOTE AT SPHERE

Deeper dive: As Neri took the stage, Sphere’s 160,000-square-foot, 16,000-by-16,0000-pixel wraparound screen boasted videos captured exclusively for HPE courtesy of the Sphere Studios’ Big Sky camera, as well as dazzling, tech-themed animated graphics. At one point during the 75-minute presentation—during which only a handful of Sphere’s 17,000 seats were empty—Neri welcomed Nvidia founder and chief Jensen Huang to the stage, who drove home that “the era of generative AI is here.”

Heard from the stage: “You must engage the single most consequential technology in history. … And you must find a way as quickly as possible to turn that flywheel of your company’s experience into your company’s AI as quickly as possible,” added Huang, whose software company was briefly the world's most valuable thanks to a market cap of nearly $3.5 trillion intraday on June 20 (At the time of writing, Nvidia was ranked third behind Microsoft and Apple).

Why it matters: Perhaps unsurprisingly, the 2024 iteration of HPE Discover was the Texas-based information technology company’s largest ever since its inception in 2011. It was also the first time an HPE Discover event was combined with Aruba Atmosphere, a user event by HPE Aruba Networking—perhaps because HPE’s $14 cash billion acquisition of Juniper Networks is still on track to close by the end of 2024, or early 2025.

Related: INNOVATIVE AND IMMERSIVE EVENT VENUE SPHERE DEBUTS IN LAS VEGAS 

Looking ahead: By having its Discover and Aruba Networking events running concurrently in Vegas, HPE has already generated buzz about HPE Discover 2025, and how it will look different once Juniper Networks is part of the family.

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