HPE Discover 2024 | Krista Satterthwaite discusses the various paths companies embark on along their AI adoption journey

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Krista Satterthwaite

Senior Vice President and General Manager, Compute

HPE

Harnessing AI in enterprise solutions: Inside HPE’s strategy to help orgs overcome challenges and drive innovation

The technology landscape has been rapidly evolving with the rise of AI in enterprise solutions. Companies large and small are increasingly interested in leveraging AI to enhance their operations, despite initial hesitations and challenges.While some anxiety remains around AI adoption, possible security concerns and sustainability in computing infrastructure, one of the key takeaways from this week’s HPE Discover event is the importance of embracing experimental attitudes toward AI, navigating associated risks effectively and updating legacy systems to optimize power consumption

play_circle_outline HPE Discover 2024

play_circle_outline Navigating AI adoption challenges and opportunities with the HPE Private Cloud AI solution.

play_circle_outline AI's impact on enterprise productivity

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Krista Satterthwaite discusses the various paths companies embark on along their AI adoption journey

Krista Satterthwaite

Senior Vice President and General Manager, Compute HPE

search

Rebecca Knight

>> Good morning everyone, and welcome back to theCUBE's live coverage of HPE Discover 2024 here in Las Vegas, Nevada. I'm your host, Rebecca Knight, sitting alongside my co-host and co-analyst, Dave Vellante. This has really been a great show, and-

>> Yeah, it is. People, they're still coming today. This is the getaway day, but people are coming. They're a little slower getting in today.

Rebecca Knight

>> Exactly. Well, yeah.

>> A little late getting up this morning, but it's all good.

Rebecca Knight

>> People are still recovering from the Dead & Company show. So, I'd like to welcome our next guest to the show. She is a CUBE alum who's been on the show many times. Krista Satterthwaite, senior vice president and general manager of mainstream compute at HPE. Welcome back to the show, Krista.

Krista Satterthwaite

>> Thank you so much. I appreciate it. It's great to be back.

Rebecca Knight

>> So, let's start with what's new. What's new at HPE Compute here at HPE Discover?

Krista Satterthwaite

>> All right. Well, so first of all, I was recently named the head of compute, so I'm super excited to-

Rebecca Knight

>> Congratulations.

Krista Satterthwaite

>> Thank you. It's such an exciting time right now. We have a mission to help enterprise customers take advantage of AI. And what we're seeing is that enterprise customers are really, really interested, but they haven't really gotten started very much. And the way I look at this is we're in this gen AI beginner's window, and it's great because we're all learning together, everything's new and nobody's really expected to be great yet. And then, I see some people in one camp that are taking full advantage of the AI beginner's window, and then I see people that aren't as much. And the ones that are, they're doing things a little bit differently. First thing is they have more of a experimental attitude, which means they get experience, but also momentum. The second thing is they're navigating the people dynamics a little bit easier as well. And thirdly, they see the risks, but they don't let that block them from seeking the AI opportunities. And it's funny because when it comes to risks, financial services is very risk averse, and yet, they're the ones that are really going after AI, one of the hardest in all the industries that we serve. They really are trying to navigate the risks, so they can take advantage of the opportunities.

>> What about the other end of the spectrum, Krista, those that aren't diving in? Our survey data with our partner ETR shows that it's still in the low teens of folks that say they're not diving into gen AI. And when we ask them why, they basically say, "It's moving too fast. We can't keep up. It's too risky. Compliance issues. We're going to wait."

Krista Satterthwaite

>> Yes.

>> What are you seeing and what's your advice to those folks?

Krista Satterthwaite

>> Yeah, and I talked to a lot of those people too, so I know exactly what you're talking about. And one of the first things I want people to realize is that there are many customers who feel behind, "I haven't done this yet, I haven't gotten to that." And what I want to say is we're still in the gen AI beginner's window, so everybody is still just getting started. And I don't want anybody to be hesitant because they feel so behind, they're stuck. But what I'll say is one of the things we launched at Discover was our HPE Private Cloud AI. And it is exactly what we were thinking of is the customers that are really stuck and don't know how to get started. It's a turnkey solution. It has everything you need from compute, storage, networking, and software, and you can get started in a few clicks. And so, we made it just for that person that doesn't know how to get started. And a couple of the things I'm excited about is, first of all, one of the big challenges, AI security. We have people that say, "I have such proprietary data, I can't put that in a private cloud." With Private Cloud AI, we give the control for privacy, security, transparency and governance. So, this is a really good option for them. And then, the second one is they don't know how to get started. Somebody told me, "Hey, I don't know where to start. This isn't traditional IT." And that's why we created the small, medium, large and extra large sizes that we've worked with NVIDIA to create so that they can get started really quickly and easily.

>> Yeah, the T-shirt sizes. Actually, I first heard about that in scrum and agile, companies like Snowflake have used it. It just makes things really simple.

Rebecca Knight

>> Yeah, but the thing we know about AI is that it has so much power and potential, but also, that it is energy intensive. So, I'm wondering how you think about balancing the company's interest in AI and desire to do more with AI, with just the growing need and the growing awareness of the need for energy sustainability and decreasing energy use.

Krista Satterthwaite

>> Yeah, so that's a great question. And what I will say is there was a study done, and they found out that 40% of servers are five years old or older. And they're doing 7% of the work in the data center, but using 66% of the power. 7% of the work, 66% of the power. There are all these old servers out there. And when we even look at our own portfolio, if somebody is running, and there is a lot of people doing this, running ProLiant Gen 8s, if you look at our ProLiant Gen 11, it takes 11 Gen 8s to equal the performance of one Gen 11. And if you upgrade, 90% less power, 90%. There's not many ways to save 90%. And if it's Gen 9, it's eight to one. So, there are people that are wasting power in the data center because they have these old servers around and they don't have the latest security, they don't have the latest management features, and they're managing 11 times more than they need to be, who wants to do 11 times more than anything than they need to? So, they need to be able to spend the watts on the things that will move their business forward.

>> And I sometimes get lost in the gigawatt discussion, but roughly speaking, IT I think today consumes around 4% of the world's energy and it's projected to more than double. I think it's going to be 10%. So, what happens to those older servers? So, are they depreciated assets that come off the books or are they redeployed? Are they recycled? What do customers do with those?

Krista Satterthwaite

>> Yeah, the good news is with HPE Financial Services, we can recycle those for them. We have programs to help them with that. We even have programs like Accelerated Migration. So, if they do have assets that they need to hold onto for accounting purposes or they're not ready to migrate to something else, we can give them cash for those owned assets and they can turn it into a pay-as-you-go. They can use that cash to buy the new equipment they need to run AI or any other use case they have. So, we have a lot of programs with HPE Financial Services. We help customers create smarter IT life cycles.

>> It's like when you lease a car, they let you get out of the lease early and make it simple for you to stay with the brand. If you like the brand, why not? That's awesome.

Krista Satterthwaite

>> Yes, that's right.

Rebecca Knight

>> So, obviously NVIDIA has been a topic du jour here. We had Jensen Huang up on the main stage-

Krista Satterthwaite

>> Very exciting....

Rebecca Knight

>> with Antonio this week. How intimately involved was your team with the partnership with NVIDIA?

Krista Satterthwaite

>> Very intimately involved. The solutions that were announced, the T-shirt sizes, they have ProLiant compute underneath underpinning them. So, we have worked with them to create two new platforms. One is the DL384. It's a Grace Hopper platform. And we announced that with NVIDIA in my session as well, and showed it and unveiled it to everyone. And then, we also did the next generation of our DL380A, which is an accelerated server. Our DL380 we've been shipping for years and years and years, super popular. We did A, which is a more accelerated version. We have that now, but the next one accepts the next generation NVIDIA GPUs. So, that's the one that we announced here at Discover.

>> So, next one being Blackwell, is that right?

Krista Satterthwaite

>> No, actually we're shipping it this year and it's called the DL380A Gen 12. And it accepts the 600-watt GPUs that are coming from NVIDIA.

>> Ah, okay. Great. Then, you got to keep up with that one-year rhythm.

Krista Satterthwaite

>> Yeah, and we're working like this with NVIDIA to make sure that everything we're creating can really handle the technology that they're coming out with.

>> I mean, it's such a different world, isn't it? We were sort of used to these two-year cycles and maybe even longer, and now, it's much more compressed. How are you, well, I think you answered it, but I wanted to know how you're handling that. Obviously, you're just working very closely with those guys, but it's a different world now.

Krista Satterthwaite

>> It is. But we work regularly to discuss roadmaps, think about which products we need to co-develop. And that's part of what you're seeing revealed today or this week at Discover.

Rebecca Knight

>> So, Krista, you have been with HPE for 27 years. You've really had your career here. And as you were saying earlier when we started talking with you, this is a real profound moment in this new world of computing. I'd love you to reflect a little bit about what it means to be here at HPE now, and then also what you see in store and where you see the market headed.

Krista Satterthwaite

>> Okay. Well, first of all, the whole topic of AI, gen AI has just been an accelerator for us, our customers, our channel partners, distributors, everyone's really excited about the possibilities. For me, I don't think I've ever seen that in 27 years, how something has kind of come across that has captured everyone so much. And it's something that not only IT cares about. Everybody in the organization they work for care about it. So, they're in a position to help their business really move things forward in a way that they've never been able to do before. And in terms of what's next and where I see things going, I definitely see that our enterprise customers are going to leverage gen AI, they're going to see how it can help their business, and it's going to be productivity. It's going to be about helping them get closer to their customers. It's going to be about helping them develop products quicker and more easily. And so, I'm excited about that. And we talked a little bit about power. At HPE, I think we're in a really good position because when it comes to cooling and our liquid cooling capabilities, we're really ready for whatever comes next.

>> Oh, it's interesting, and you've seen a lot of these waves, as have we. The PC wave was very disruptive. It changed the structure of the industry and everything went horizontal from that vertically-integrated mainframe. The internet was just an opportunity for everybody. Cloud was very disruptive because it was like, okay, it forced a new operating model on everyone. The AI wave to me is much more like the internet in the sense that everybody can take advantage of it. There's lots of activity in the cloud, there's so much data on-prem. And we're in a unique time because there was no internet when the internet started. Now, there's internet, there's cloud, and everything's moving faster, so it's win-win. And if you can help the customers get AI right, that's truly transformative. Your final thoughts?

Krista Satterthwaite

>> Well, I'll say one of the things I remember when the internet first came out, we didn't know how to leverage it either. I mean, we had no idea where it was going to take us. I think this is very similar. I think we're all going to be surprised at how far AI can take us, and I'm excited about what's next.

Rebecca Knight

>> Finally, I have to ask you, because I know you were named 2023's Black Tech Executive of the Year. You were Savoy Magazine's Most Influential Woman in Corporate America 2019. You are a black woman in tech and there's not a lot of you. I mean, I sit here, I interview a lot of dudes, I've got to say. So, it's exciting to see such an accomplished woman here. How do you think about ways to improve the pipeline and make sure we get more black people, make sure we get more women in roles like yours?

Krista Satterthwaite

>> Oh, well, thanks for all the nice kind words. What I would say is it starts with making sure that when it comes to education, that everyone has access and opportunities to get into the tech fields, they feel welcome in the tech fields. And then, when it comes to recruiting and those kinds of things and nurturing people along in their career, making sure that they have people to look up to, mentors, that they can see a path for themselves. I think that most challenging part is when people don't feel like they're set up for success or they don't feel welcomed, and I think that's what we have to make sure we address, so that more people feel included in IT.

>> Did you feel welcome at the beginning of your career, or did you have to break through some kind of barrier to find that mentor? Take us back to your experience.

Krista Satterthwaite

>> Well, HPE has a fantastic culture, and that's why people stay as long as they do. And my experience has been great. From the day I walked in... The day I walked in, I was lost. I was lost. I wasn't in the right building, and it was a really big campus. And so, somebody went 20 minutes out of their way, a total stranger I didn't know, to get me to where I needed to be, there and back it was 20 minutes and that's how HPE is. You call anybody and they're willing to help. So, for me, I've had a fantastic experience. And obviously, I've had a opportunity to take on new roles every few years. So, I've been growing ever since I started.

>> Congratulations.

Krista Satterthwaite

>> Thanks. Thanks.

Rebecca Knight

>> Absolutely. Krista, a pleasure having you back on theCUBE.

Krista Satterthwaite

>> Well, thank you. Thanks for having me.

>> You bet.

Rebecca Knight

>> I'm Rebecca Knight for Dave Vellante. Stay tuned for more of theCUBE's live coverage of HPE Discover. You're watching theCUBE, the leader in enterprise tech news and analysis.

Krista Satterthwaite discusses the various paths companies embark on along their AI adoption journey

search

Rebecca Knight

>> Good morning everyone, and welcome back to theCUBE's live coverage of HPE Discover 2024 here in Las Vegas, Nevada. I'm your host, Rebecca Knight, sitting alongside my co-host and co-analyst, Dave Vellante. This has really been a great show, and-

>> Yeah, it is. People, they're still coming today. This is the getaway day, but people are coming. They're a little slower getting in today.

Rebecca Knight

>> Exactly. Well, yeah.

>> A little late getting up this morning, but it's all good.

Rebecca Knight

>> People are still recovering from the Dead & Company show. So, I'd like to welcome our next guest to the show. She is a CUBE alum who's been on the show many times. Krista Satterthwaite, senior vice president and general manager of mainstream compute at HPE. Welcome back to the show, Krista.

Krista Satterthwaite

>> Thank you so much. I appreciate it. It's great to be back.

Rebecca Knight

>> So, let's start with what's new. What's new at HPE Compute here at HPE Discover?

Krista Satterthwaite

>> All right. Well, so first of all, I was recently named the head of compute, so I'm super excited to-

Rebecca Knight

>> Congratulations.

Krista Satterthwaite

>> Thank you. It's such an exciting time right now. We have a mission to help enterprise customers take advantage of AI. And what we're seeing is that enterprise customers are really, really interested, but they haven't really gotten started very much. And the way I look at this is we're in this gen AI beginner's window, and it's great because we're all learning together, everything's new and nobody's really expected to be great yet. And then, I see some people in one camp that are taking full advantage of the AI beginner's window, and then I see people that aren't as much. And the ones that are, they're doing things a little bit differently. First thing is they have more of a experimental attitude, which means they get experience, but also momentum. The second thing is they're navigating the people dynamics a little bit easier as well. And thirdly, they see the risks, but they don't let that block them from seeking the AI opportunities. And it's funny because when it comes to risks, financial services is very risk averse, and yet, they're the ones that are really going after AI, one of the hardest in all the industries that we serve. They really are trying to navigate the risks, so they can take advantage of the opportunities.

>> What about the other end of the spectrum, Krista, those that aren't diving in? Our survey data with our partner ETR shows that it's still in the low teens of folks that say they're not diving into gen AI. And when we ask them why, they basically say, "It's moving too fast. We can't keep up. It's too risky. Compliance issues. We're going to wait."

Krista Satterthwaite

>> Yes.

>> What are you seeing and what's your advice to those folks?

Krista Satterthwaite

>> Yeah, and I talked to a lot of those people too, so I know exactly what you're talking about. And one of the first things I want people to realize is that there are many customers who feel behind, "I haven't done this yet, I haven't gotten to that." And what I want to say is we're still in the gen AI beginner's window, so everybody is still just getting started. And I don't want anybody to be hesitant because they feel so behind, they're stuck. But what I'll say is one of the things we launched at Discover was our HPE Private Cloud AI. And it is exactly what we were thinking of is the customers that are really stuck and don't know how to get started. It's a turnkey solution. It has everything you need from compute, storage, networking, and software, and you can get started in a few clicks. And so, we made it just for that person that doesn't know how to get started. And a couple of the things I'm excited about is, first of all, one of the big challenges, AI security. We have people that say, "I have such proprietary data, I can't put that in a private cloud." With Private Cloud AI, we give the control for privacy, security, transparency and governance. So, this is a really good option for them. And then, the second one is they don't know how to get started. Somebody told me, "Hey, I don't know where to start. This isn't traditional IT." And that's why we created the small, medium, large and extra large sizes that we've worked with NVIDIA to create so that they can get started really quickly and easily.

>> Yeah, the T-shirt sizes. Actually, I first heard about that in scrum and agile, companies like Snowflake have used it. It just makes things really simple.

Rebecca Knight

>> Yeah, but the thing we know about AI is that it has so much power and potential, but also, that it is energy intensive. So, I'm wondering how you think about balancing the company's interest in AI and desire to do more with AI, with just the growing need and the growing awareness of the need for energy sustainability and decreasing energy use.

Krista Satterthwaite

>> Yeah, so that's a great question. And what I will say is there was a study done, and they found out that 40% of servers are five years old or older. And they're doing 7% of the work in the data center, but using 66% of the power. 7% of the work, 66% of the power. There are all these old servers out there. And when we even look at our own portfolio, if somebody is running, and there is a lot of people doing this, running ProLiant Gen 8s, if you look at our ProLiant Gen 11, it takes 11 Gen 8s to equal the performance of one Gen 11. And if you upgrade, 90% less power, 90%. There's not many ways to save 90%. And if it's Gen 9, it's eight to one. So, there are people that are wasting power in the data center because they have these old servers around and they don't have the latest security, they don't have the latest management features, and they're managing 11 times more than they need to be, who wants to do 11 times more than anything than they need to? So, they need to be able to spend the watts on the things that will move their business forward.

>> And I sometimes get lost in the gigawatt discussion, but roughly speaking, IT I think today consumes around 4% of the world's energy and it's projected to more than double. I think it's going to be 10%. So, what happens to those older servers? So, are they depreciated assets that come off the books or are they redeployed? Are they recycled? What do customers do with those?

Krista Satterthwaite

>> Yeah, the good news is with HPE Financial Services, we can recycle those for them. We have programs to help them with that. We even have programs like Accelerated Migration. So, if they do have assets that they need to hold onto for accounting purposes or they're not ready to migrate to something else, we can give them cash for those owned assets and they can turn it into a pay-as-you-go. They can use that cash to buy the new equipment they need to run AI or any other use case they have. So, we have a lot of programs with HPE Financial Services. We help customers create smarter IT life cycles.

>> It's like when you lease a car, they let you get out of the lease early and make it simple for you to stay with the brand. If you like the brand, why not? That's awesome.

Krista Satterthwaite

>> Yes, that's right.

Rebecca Knight

>> So, obviously NVIDIA has been a topic du jour here. We had Jensen Huang up on the main stage-

Krista Satterthwaite

>> Very exciting....

Rebecca Knight

>> with Antonio this week. How intimately involved was your team with the partnership with NVIDIA?

Krista Satterthwaite

>> Very intimately involved. The solutions that were announced, the T-shirt sizes, they have ProLiant compute underneath underpinning them. So, we have worked with them to create two new platforms. One is the DL384. It's a Grace Hopper platform. And we announced that with NVIDIA in my session as well, and showed it and unveiled it to everyone. And then, we also did the next generation of our DL380A, which is an accelerated server. Our DL380 we've been shipping for years and years and years, super popular. We did A, which is a more accelerated version. We have that now, but the next one accepts the next generation NVIDIA GPUs. So, that's the one that we announced here at Discover.

>> So, next one being Blackwell, is that right?

Krista Satterthwaite

>> No, actually we're shipping it this year and it's called the DL380A Gen 12. And it accepts the 600-watt GPUs that are coming from NVIDIA.

>> Ah, okay. Great. Then, you got to keep up with that one-year rhythm.

Krista Satterthwaite

>> Yeah, and we're working like this with NVIDIA to make sure that everything we're creating can really handle the technology that they're coming out with.

>> I mean, it's such a different world, isn't it? We were sort of used to these two-year cycles and maybe even longer, and now, it's much more compressed. How are you, well, I think you answered it, but I wanted to know how you're handling that. Obviously, you're just working very closely with those guys, but it's a different world now.

Krista Satterthwaite

>> It is. But we work regularly to discuss roadmaps, think about which products we need to co-develop. And that's part of what you're seeing revealed today or this week at Discover.

Rebecca Knight

>> So, Krista, you have been with HPE for 27 years. You've really had your career here. And as you were saying earlier when we started talking with you, this is a real profound moment in this new world of computing. I'd love you to reflect a little bit about what it means to be here at HPE now, and then also what you see in store and where you see the market headed.

Krista Satterthwaite

>> Okay. Well, first of all, the whole topic of AI, gen AI has just been an accelerator for us, our customers, our channel partners, distributors, everyone's really excited about the possibilities. For me, I don't think I've ever seen that in 27 years, how something has kind of come across that has captured everyone so much. And it's something that not only IT cares about. Everybody in the organization they work for care about it. So, they're in a position to help their business really move things forward in a way that they've never been able to do before. And in terms of what's next and where I see things going, I definitely see that our enterprise customers are going to leverage gen AI, they're going to see how it can help their business, and it's going to be productivity. It's going to be about helping them get closer to their customers. It's going to be about helping them develop products quicker and more easily. And so, I'm excited about that. And we talked a little bit about power. At HPE, I think we're in a really good position because when it comes to cooling and our liquid cooling capabilities, we're really ready for whatever comes next.

>> Oh, it's interesting, and you've seen a lot of these waves, as have we. The PC wave was very disruptive. It changed the structure of the industry and everything went horizontal from that vertically-integrated mainframe. The internet was just an opportunity for everybody. Cloud was very disruptive because it was like, okay, it forced a new operating model on everyone. The AI wave to me is much more like the internet in the sense that everybody can take advantage of it. There's lots of activity in the cloud, there's so much data on-prem. And we're in a unique time because there was no internet when the internet started. Now, there's internet, there's cloud, and everything's moving faster, so it's win-win. And if you can help the customers get AI right, that's truly transformative. Your final thoughts?

Krista Satterthwaite

>> Well, I'll say one of the things I remember when the internet first came out, we didn't know how to leverage it either. I mean, we had no idea where it was going to take us. I think this is very similar. I think we're all going to be surprised at how far AI can take us, and I'm excited about what's next.

Rebecca Knight

>> Finally, I have to ask you, because I know you were named 2023's Black Tech Executive of the Year. You were Savoy Magazine's Most Influential Woman in Corporate America 2019. You are a black woman in tech and there's not a lot of you. I mean, I sit here, I interview a lot of dudes, I've got to say. So, it's exciting to see such an accomplished woman here. How do you think about ways to improve the pipeline and make sure we get more black people, make sure we get more women in roles like yours?

Krista Satterthwaite

>> Oh, well, thanks for all the nice kind words. What I would say is it starts with making sure that when it comes to education, that everyone has access and opportunities to get into the tech fields, they feel welcome in the tech fields. And then, when it comes to recruiting and those kinds of things and nurturing people along in their career, making sure that they have people to look up to, mentors, that they can see a path for themselves. I think that most challenging part is when people don't feel like they're set up for success or they don't feel welcomed, and I think that's what we have to make sure we address, so that more people feel included in IT.

>> Did you feel welcome at the beginning of your career, or did you have to break through some kind of barrier to find that mentor? Take us back to your experience.

Krista Satterthwaite

>> Well, HPE has a fantastic culture, and that's why people stay as long as they do. And my experience has been great. From the day I walked in... The day I walked in, I was lost. I was lost. I wasn't in the right building, and it was a really big campus. And so, somebody went 20 minutes out of their way, a total stranger I didn't know, to get me to where I needed to be, there and back it was 20 minutes and that's how HPE is. You call anybody and they're willing to help. So, for me, I've had a fantastic experience. And obviously, I've had a opportunity to take on new roles every few years. So, I've been growing ever since I started.

>> Congratulations.

Krista Satterthwaite

>> Thanks. Thanks.

Rebecca Knight

>> Absolutely. Krista, a pleasure having you back on theCUBE.

Krista Satterthwaite

>> Well, thank you. Thanks for having me.

>> You bet.

Rebecca Knight

>> I'm Rebecca Knight for Dave Vellante. Stay tuned for more of theCUBE's live coverage of HPE Discover. You're watching theCUBE, the leader in enterprise tech news and analysis.