HPE CTO Fidelma Russo took to the main stage at HPE Discover 2026 in Las Vegas to detail a set of product announcements focused on governing data, orchestrating infrastructure, and operating AI agents in production. Where CEO Antonio Neri’s day-one keynote covered the portfolio architecture across networking, compute, and storage, Russo’s session went deeper on the software and operations layer that sits on top of that infrastructure.

Russo framed all of it around a single operational shift: Enterprises have moved from static workflows and human decision-making to distributed intelligence operating across fragmented infrastructure. The products she announced address what it takes to govern and operate that intelligence once it is in production. Key announcements include:

• HPE Data Fabric 8.2 with agent-aware capabilities
• HPE Morpheus 9 with federated multi-site management and integrated software-defined networking
• HPE OpsRamp Operations Copilot for AI factory observability
• New partnership with ServiceNow connecting GreenLake Intelligence with autonomous service delivery 

“The question is no longer whether AI will transform the enterprise,” Russo said. “The question is, how do we make that transformation secure, governed, scalable, and operational?”

Data Fabric as the trusted layer for AI

Russo reiterated the now-familiar mantra that every AI strategy requires a data strategy, but argued that in an agentic world, data becomes part of the operational engine, not just an input. Agentic AI, she said, doesn’t simply retrieve information once, it continuously accesses data throughout the lifecycle of a task. That puts pressure on organizations to make data discoverable, governed, secured, and accessible wherever those agents operate. 

To help solve that challenge, Russo announced HPE Data Fabric 8.2, with agent-aware capabilities; an enhanced global data catalog; and an appliance option aimed at simplifying deployment and reducing time-to-value.

“Before AI can act on that data, data must be discoverable, it must be governed, it must be secured, and it must be accessible wherever those agents operate,” Russo said.

HPE Morpheus 9: Central control plane for hybrid and AI infrastructure

Russo also used her keynote to announce HPE Morpheus 9. Part of the new HPE CloudOps Software Suite, Morpheus handles runtime orchestration and automation for traditional virtualization, container platforms, and AI workloads. 

With version 9, HPE is introducing Morpheus Central, a federated multi-site management layer delivered as a GreenLake cloud service, with an air‑gapped on‑premises option. Morpheus Central provides a single operational view across multiple Morpheus deployments spanning data centers, regions, and cloud providers. From one console, operators can see:

• Fleet health (healthy, warning, and critical appliances)
• Software currency and version drift across sites
• Cost and license utilization for the entire estate 

Morpheus 9 also adds integrated software-defined networking (SDN) based on Juniper technology, bringing policy, security, and micro‑segmentation into the same platform. HPE is pitching these capabilities as transforming Morpheus from a provisioning tool into a true enterprise control plane for hybrid infrastructure, including AI workloads.

“This is our most advanced platform for operating modern and traditional infrastructure, as well as AI workloads,” Russo said.

Distributed agentic enterprises

HPE is extending its AI strategy beyond infrastructure into daily IT operations with an expansion of HPE GreenLake Intelligence, built around an agentic mesh and a growing family of copilots. At the core is a centralized agent registry and planning service that assigns identity, governance, and policy controls to AI agents, then coordinates which specialized agents should work together to deliver a requested outcome. 

“Intelligence, which is usually trapped in products, has to move across and beyond individual products,” Russo said.

On top of this framework, HPE is rolling out multiple copilots aimed at making complex hybrid environments more manageable. A compute copilot is designed to help teams operate server infrastructure more intelligently, while a Morpheus orchestration copilot lets operators automate infrastructure using natural language. The flagship for observability is the OpsRamp Operations Copilot, which sits on GreenLake Intelligence and lets operators interact with their environment conversationally instead of hunting through dashboards, tickets, and logs. It uses frontier-scale models to reason across signals from infrastructure, applications, networks, AI services, and operations tools, surfacing related incidents, context, and recommended remediation in a single conversational view.

“Data powers intelligence, intelligence powers AI, and intelligence helps us operate it all,” Russo said. “We are now entering an era where people, systems, and agents are working together at a scale we’ve never seen before, and to do that successfully, organizations need three things: a trusted data layer, a platform for an agentic era, and intelligence embedded in day-to-day operations.”

Read more from HPE Discover 2026

• HPE CEO Neri outlines an AI architecture built for agents
• HPE product barrage targets AI networks, agents, management