What is happening at HPE Discover? This week Technology Now is dialing into to HPE Discover Las Vegas, HPE’s annual customer and partner event. Our reporter on the ground, Sam Jarrell, is joined by HPE’s President and CEO, Antonio Neri, to explore the show floor and learn more about this year’s event. This episode is available in both video and audio formats.

This is Technology Now, a weekly show from Hewlett Packard Enterprise. Every week, hosts Michael Bird and Aubrey Lovell look at a story that's been making headlines, take a look at the technology behind it, and explain why it matters to organizations.

About Antonio Neri:
https://www.hpe.com/uk/en/leadership-bios/antonio-neri.html

This Week in History:
https://www.iaea.org/sites/default/files/26404794246.pdf
https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/current-and-future-generation/nuclear-power-in-the-world-today

What do you do with the world’s largest supercomputer? This week, Technology Now looks further into the world of supercomputers and explores what the world’s largest supercomputer, El Capitan, and its sister machine, Tuolumne, are used for. Rob Rieben, a computational physicist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, tells us more.

This is Technology Now, a weekly show from Hewlett Packard Enterprise. Every week, hosts Michael Bird and Aubrey Lovell look at a story that's been making headlines, take a look at the technology behind it, and explain why it matters to organizations and what can be learnt from it.

About Rob: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rieben1/

Sources
What are supercomputers used for:
https://www.anl.gov/science-101/supercomputing

Today I learned:
https://www.england.nhs.uk/2025/05/nhs-first-in-world-to-roll-out-revolutionary-blood-test-for-cancer-patients/
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/may/29/revolutionary-dna-blood-test-to-offer-thousands-in-england-tailored-cancer-care

This week in history:
https://www.esa.int/About_Us/50_years_of_ESA/50_years_of_humans_in_space/First_woman_in_space_Valentina

How do you make the world’s fastest supercomputer? This week, Technology Now dives into the world of supercomputers, and how El Capitan, the world’s largest supercomputer, was built. We will explore the software and hardware requirements as well as investigating the physical requirements needed to even be able to run a supercomputer on your premises. Bronis de Supinski, CTO of Livermore Computing at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, tells us more.

This is Technology Now, a weekly show from Hewlett Packard Enterprise. Every week, hosts Michael Bird and Aubrey Lovell look at a story that's been making headlines, take a look at the technology behind it, and explain why it matters to organizations and what can be learnt from it.

About Bronis: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bronis-de-supinski-607a441/

Sources
El Capitan
https://www.hpe.com/us/en/newsroom/press-release/2024/11/hewlett-packard-enterprise-delivers-worlds-fastest-direct-liquid-cooled-exascale-supercomputer-el-capitan-for-lawrence-livermore-national-laboratory.html
What are FLOPS
https://www.techtarget.com/whatis/definition/FLOPS-floating-point-operations-per-second

Today I Learned
Ma. Y., et all, 2025, Near-infrared spatiotemporal colour vision in humans enabled by upconversion contact lenses, ISSN 0092-8674, 10.1016/j.cell.2025.04.019
https://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674(25)00454-4

This Week in History
https://www.bbc.co.uk/future/article/20201028-history-of-the-ballpoint-pen
https://spinoff.nasa.gov/space-pens

How do we prepare our cybersecurity for a post quantum world? This week, Technology Now explores how security experts are looking to future-proofing their work. We will examine the hurdles to post-quantum security, the underlying ways in which our data is protected, and we will be delving into the underground world of “harvest now, decrypt later”. Dr Sarah McCarthy tells us more.

This is Technology Now, a weekly show from Hewlett Packard Enterprise. Every week, hosts Michael Bird and Aubrey Lovell look at a story that's been making headlines, take a look at the technology behind it, and explain why it matters to organizations and what can be learnt from it.

About Dr Sarah McCarthy: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarahmccarthyphd/?originalSubdomain=ca

Sources

Quantum computing chip:

https://blog.google/technology/research/google-willow-quantum-chip/

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c791ng0zvl3o

NIST Post Quantum Standards: https://www.nist.gov/news-events/news/2024/08/nist-releases-first-3-finalized-post-quantum-encryption-standards

Martian aurora: https://science.nasa.gov/solar-system/planets/mars/nasa-observes-first-visible-light-auroras-at-mars/

Rutherford’s Lecture: https://web.lemoyne.edu/giunta/ruth1920.html

James Chadwick: https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/physics/1935/chadwick/biographical/

Where do you create an AI? This week, Technology Now explores the world of AI factories, dedicated spaces for building bespoke artificial intelligence software. We look into what these factories are, how they work, and we examine the importance of them going forward. Iveta Lohovska tells us more.

This is Technology Now, a weekly show from Hewlett Packard Enterprise. Every week, hosts Michael Bird and Aubrey Lovell look at a story that's been making headlines, take a look at the technology behind it, and explain why it matters to organizations and what can be learnt from it.

More about this week’s guest: https://www.linkedin.com/in/iveta-lohovska-40210362/?originalSubdomain=at

Energy to train an LLM: https://www.economist.com/technology-quarterly/2024/01/29/data-centres-improved-greatly-in-energy-efficiency-as-they-grew-massively-larger

Today I Learnt:

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adu9368

This Week in History:

https://eclipse2017.nasa.gov/testing-general-relativity

https://www.amnh.org/exhibitions/einstein/energy/special-relativity

https://web.lemoyne.edu/giunta/ruth1920.html

How can we prevent people misusing technology to harm others? This week, Technology Now investigates how technology can be used as a weapon against others. We ask how technology has been utilized by bad faith actors in this way and we examine whose responsibility it is to prevent this misuse of technology. Joanne O’Connor from HPE’s cybersecurity organization and founder of Ireland’s National Cyber Security Awareness Taskforce tells us more.

This is Technology Now, a weekly show from Hewlett Packard Enterprise. Every week, hosts Michael Bird and Aubrey Lovell look at a story that's been making headlines, take a look at the technology behind it, and explain why it matters to organizations and what can be learnt from it.

About Joanne O’Connor: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joanne-oconnor-/?originalSubdomain=ie

Sources:
Refuge, UK Charity: https://refuge.org.uk/news/refuge-calls-for-tech-facilitated-abuse-to-be-a-priority-in-government-vawg-strategy-following-the-charitys-inaugural-tech-safety-summit/

Technology abuse in fast fashion: https://blog.policy.manchester.ac.uk/posts/2024/07/modern-slavery-and-digital-technology-in-fast-fashion-the-transparency-dividend/

Snake Venom:
Snake venom protection by a cocktail of varespladib and broadly neutralizing human antibodies, Glanville, Jacob et al., Cell, Volume 0, Issue 0, 10.1016/j.cell.2025.03.050 External Link
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cr5d0l7el36o

Hubble First Light:
https://science.nasa.gov/mission/hubble/overview/hubbles-first-light/
https://science.nasa.gov/mission/hubble/observatory/design/optics/hubbles-mirror-flaw/
https://science.nasa.gov/mission/hubble/overview/the-history-of-hubble/

How do we make artificial intelligence more intelligent? This week, Technology Now dives deep into the world of AI agents and how they interact with large language models. We ask what are some of the current problems with AI, and examine how applying agents can help artificial intelligence to provide better answers to our questions. Jimmy Whitaker, Chief Scientist in the AI Private Cloud Group at HPE, tells us more.

This is Technology Now, a weekly show from Hewlett Packard Enterprise. Every week, hosts Michael Bird and Aubrey Lovell look at a story that's been making headlines, take a look at the technology behind it, and explain why it matters to organizations and what can be learnt from it.

Jimmy Whitaker: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jimmymwhitaker/

Sources cited in this week’s episode:
Today I learned:
https://www.simonsfoundation.org/2025/04/29/flares-from-magnetized-stars-can-forge-planets-worth-of-gold-other-heavy-elements/
Anirudh Patel et al., 2025, Direct Evidence for r-process Nucleosynthesis in Delayed MeV Emission from the SGR 1806–20 Magnetar Giant Flare, ApJL 984 L29, DOI 10.3847/2041-8213/adc9b0

This week in history:
Strassburg MA. The global eradication of smallpox. Am J Infect Control. 1982 May;10(2):53-9. doi: 10.1016/0196-6553(82)90003-7. PMID: 7044193.
Muyembe JJ, et al, 2024, Ebola Outbreak Response in the DRC with r-VSV-ZEBOV-GP Ring Vaccination, The New England Journal of Medicine, 2024;391:2327-2336, VOL. 391 NO.24, https://www.nejm.org/doi/10.1056/NEJMoa1904387
https://www.who.int/health-topics/poliomyelitis#tab=tab_1

Why would someone want a 3D digital twin? This week Technology Now dives into the topic of digital twins, what they are and why they’re used. What are the challenges faced when trying to build and use a SD digital twin, and what are the benefits these twins bring to companies which use them? Sebastian Schwarz, General Manager at NetAllied, tells us more.

This is Technology Now, a weekly show from Hewlett Packard Enterprise. Every week, hosts Michael Bird and Aubrey Lovell look at a story that's been making headlines, take a look at the technology behind it, and explain why it matters to organizations and what can be learnt from it.

Sources:
Today I Learned:
James Fong et al., Novel color via stimulation of individual photoreceptors at population scale.Sci. Adv.11,eadu1052(2025).DOI:10.1126/sciadv.adu1052
https://www.cis.rit.edu/people/faculty/montag/vandplite/pages/chap_9/ch9p1.html#:~:text=Rods%20are%20responsible%20for%20vision,responsible%20for%20high%20spatial%20acuity.

This Week In History:
https://www.postalmuseum.org/collections/highlights/the-first-ever-stamp-the-penny-black/
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-48844278