“Juniper acquisition takes us to a different level.” – Lars Kolendorf, HPE Aruba Networking

CNME Editor Mark Forker sat down with Lars Kolendorf, Global Vice President, at HPE Aruba Networking, during GITEX Global 2025. Kolendorf explained the real significance of the acquisition deal when it comes to the global networking space, whilst he also reinforced the importance of the network when it comes to AI, and how their ability to anonymise data on the network was one of many of its key differentiators in the marketplace.

Kolendorf kickstarted the conversation by dissecting the importance of the $14bn acquisition of Juniper Networks and detailed the incredible transformation of its position as a global networking player since he joined the company in 2002.

“The acquisition of Juniper Networks has made us one of the global leaders in networking, which is in sharp contrast to the state of play when I first joined HPE 23 years ago.  Back then, we were the 11^th biggest player in the networking space, so it’s been quite the journey,” said Kolendorf.

Kolendorf stressed that whilst networking isn’t something that captures the imagination, he reemphasized its critical importance to the IT sector.

“Traditionally, networking in many respects has always taken a bit of a back seat, it maybe isn’t the most exciting component in the tech stack. However, when I’m having conversations with the C-suite, I always ask the question of what can you do if the network is not working? They pause and say you can’t do anything. You know everyone in the global tech ecosystem is talking about Nvidia and AI, but again AI is all about data, but you get your data from the network, so the network is crucial to everything. We had a good presence in networking, but the acquisition of Juniper Networks has really taken us to another level, and it’s a very exciting time for us all,” said Kolendorf.

Acquisitions are complex, and can be very challenging, but even though the official merger only happened in July, the company is already making huge progress according to Kolendorf.

“Acquisitions are not easy, and it can take time to absorb a company into your own operations, but what we have done over the last 2 months is incredible to be honest. We’ve done things over the last few months that some vendors haven’t done in 10 years. We’re targeting the datacentre networking segment, which is connecting AI workloads and datacentres, and then you have the access side of the business. We had a vision, and we brought that to life in the form of our self-driving network. Our self-driving network is an AI-driven system that uses agentic AI to automate network optimisation with minimal human intervention, aiming to improve performance and user experience,” said Kolendorf.

Agentic AI is all the rage at the minute, and it dominated conversations at GITEX Global 2025.

As aforementioned above, HPE self-driving network has agentic AI features.

Many cybersecurity practitioners have expressed concern that many enterprises could let agents run wild across the network, and as a result create chaos when it comes to securing the network.

However, Kolendorf explained the role their agents play on their platform and also highlighted their ability to anonymise data on the network.

“Deploying agents across the network creates challenges, there is no doubt about that. We have talked about the benefits, but it can create security issues if not deployed correctly. It is also a cloud conversation to be honest. We have an AI-driven secure networking platform, but we do understand our customers have different sovereignty needs. We adopt different approaches depending on the specific requirements in each country. What we also do that differentiates us is that when we get the data on our network, we anonymise the data. So, even if someone got access to it, which we guardrail and secure against, but if someone did access that data it’s all anonymised. That essentially means that the impact is significantly nullified if there is a breach. The agent is only capable of doing something on the network that we allow it to. It’s not able to get outside of the network and do something else, so that approach secures our Agentic AI offering,” said Kolendorf.