HPE has announced that the University of Leeds has selected the HPE Self-Driving Network to provide an intelligent, secure and scalable campus-wide wired and wireless networking foundation for the University’s long-term digital transformation.
As one of the United Kingdom’s largest and most research-intensive universities, the University of Leeds is investing in a self-driving network, designed to deliver exceptional digital experiences for students, staff and researchers while supporting the growing demands of AI-powered research, hybrid learning, connected devices and data-intensive workloads.
Rather than simply expanding infrastructure, the university is establishing a networking foundation that can adapt, optimize and heal itself as digital demands continue to evolve. Combining AI-native operations, intelligent automation and end-to-end observability, the network continuously learns from user, application and network experiences to identify emerging risks and take trusted action before issues impact services. Built on HPE’s unified wired and wireless infrastructure, including next-generation Wi-Fi 7, the deployment provides a resilient, AI-native campus network that simplifies operations while supporting future smart-campus innovation.
“What stood out from the beginning was HPE’s understanding of our ambitions and their willingness to work alongside us to deliver the right outcome,” said Matthew Graham, Technical Architect, University of Leeds. “The demands on university technology teams continue to increase, and our focus has to be on delivering the best possible experience for students, researchers and staff. The automation and visibility we’ll get means we’ll spend less time firefighting and more time supporting the work that really matters to us, in areas like AI, healthcare, engineering, robotics and climate research.”
“Universities are under increasing pressure to deliver exceptional digital experiences while managing growing complexity, constrained resources and rapidly expanding AI demands,” said Mark Weeks, UK & Ireland Sales Director, Networking, HPE. “The University of Leeds is embracing a new model where the network becomes an intelligent partner in delivering outcomes. Together, we are building a self-driving network that provides continuous assurance, simplifies operations and enables the university to focus on advancing education, research and innovation.”
The deployment is built on the HPE Mist platform, combining HPE Networking EX Switches, HPE Juniper Networking QFX Switches, and HPE Mist Networking Access Points, and HPE Mist Networking Access Points with HPE Marvis to deliver a unified agentic AIOps experience spanning the core, distribution, and edge.
