Computing giant Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) was rumoured to be in advanced talks to buy Juniper Networks for around $13 billion, a deal The Wall Street Journal reported could be announced later this week.  

The newspaper claimed the rationale for the big money buy was an attempt to better position HPE for the era of AI.

Both players are huge in the enterprise IT, communications and networking spaces, providing products to a range of industries including telecommunications.

In the mobile segment, the pair have been making plays for a slice of the open RAN pie alongside providing other infrastructure.

HPE’s offerings include cloud, high performance computing, intelligent edge, software and storage products aimed at a range of segments. Its AI play includes an enterprise generative AI platform developed in collaboration with Nvidia.

Juniper Networks describes itself as a “global leader in AI networking, cloud and connected security solutions”, providing routers, switches, software and other products. Customers include big name operators and other players in the telecoms space.