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HPE Partners With NVDA: Can it Help Challenge SMCI & DELL?

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Key Takeaways

  • HPE & NVDA are expanding integrated AI infrastructure to simplify enterprise deployment & scale AI workloads.
  • HPE's AI Factory and Private Cloud AI combine compute, storage, networking and cloud management capabilities.
  • HPE shares have surged 205.9% YTD, while its forward price-to-sales ratio of 1.79 trails the industry's 4.60.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE - Free Report) has partnered with NVIDIA (NVDA - Free Report) to help enterprises and other large AI customers simplify and scale generative AI, agentic AI and high-performance computing workloads. The integration enables Hewlett Packard Enterprise to provide integrated AI infrastructure, including hardware, software and cloud management.

At the core of the collaboration is HPE AI Factory with NVIDIA, a turnkey AI infrastructure solution that combines HPE's compute, storage, networking and GreenLake platform with NVIDIA's GPUs, CPUs, networking technologies and AI Enterprise software. The integrated offering allows enterprises to build and manage AI environments through a unified platform.

The companies have also jointly engineered HPE Private Cloud AI, which enables customers to deploy generative AI and agentic AI applications securely in on-premises or hybrid cloud environments. The solution comes with pre-integrated hardware and software, reducing deployment complexity while providing enterprise-grade capabilities.

HPE is further strengthening its AI hardware portfolio with AI-optimized servers such as the HPE ProLiant Compute DL394 Gen12, powered by NVIDIA's Vera CPU for reinforcement learning, AI agents, inference and large-scale data processing. The company also offers systems based on NVIDIA's Blackwell and Rubin architectures.

To accelerate AI workloads, HPE integrates NVIDIA's Blackwell, HGX and RTX Pro GPUs alongside Spectrum-X Ethernet, InfiniBand networking, BlueField DPUs and ConnectX SuperNICs across its AI infrastructure portfolio. HPE also incorporates NVIDIA Agent Toolkit, Nemotron models, NeMo and OpenShell into HPE Private Cloud AI, enabling enterprises to build, govern and monitor AI agents with enhanced security and observability.

How Competitors Fare Against HPE

HPE competes with Super Micro Computer (SMCI - Free Report) and Dell Technologies (DELL - Free Report) in the AI infrastructure space. Both SMCI and DELL are collaborating with NVIDIA to strengthen their offerings. For instance, Super Micro Computer's competitive advantage lies in its modular Building Block architecture that enables rapid product customization by reusing components across thousands of server configurations.

Supported by more than 3,200 research and development engineers, SMCI quickly integrates new processors from NVIDIA, AMD, Intel and ARM. This rapid product development shortens time-to-market, lowers engineering costs and enables faster global shipments, making Super Micro Computer particularly attractive for customers seeking immediate AI deployment.

Dell Technologies, meanwhile, is pursuing a broader ecosystem strategy through its Dell AI Factory with NVIDIA. Rather than focusing solely on servers, DELL is expanding across compute, storage, networking, automation and software. Dell Technologies recently introduced PowerEdge R9822 and M9822 servers powered by NVIDIA Vera CPUs for Agentic AI workloads.

Although all three companies are leveraging NVIDIA's latest AI technologies, their competitive strategies differ. HPE is betting on integrated enterprise AI platforms that combine infrastructure with cloud software and managed services and has a visible edge in this arena.

HPE’s Price Performance, Valuation and Estimates

Hewlett Packard Enterprise has skyrocketed 205.9% year to date, outperforming the Zacks Computer - Integrated Systems industry’s appreciation of 130.1% and the Zacks Computer and Technology sector’s return of 23.7%.

HPE YTD Performance Chart

Zacks Investment Research
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research

Despite the appreciation in the share price, HPE trades at a discount. From a valuation standpoint, HPE trades at a forward price-to-sales ratio of 1.79, below the industry’s 4.60.

HPE Forward 12-Month (P/S) Valuation Chart

Zacks Investment Research
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research

The Zacks Consensus Estimate for HPE’s fiscal 2026 margin implies year-over-year growth of 96.4%. Estimates have been revised upward in the past 60 days.

Zacks Investment Research
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research

HPE currently sports a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.

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