Antonio Neri To President-elect Biden: HPE Is ‘Committed To Working’ With New Administration

‘I want you to know that HPE is committed to working constructively with your administration to leverage information technology, including high performance computing (HPC), to fight COVID-19, further scientific discovery and rebuild the U.S. economy in a manner that supports the well-being of all Americans, bridge the digital divide to foster greater opportunity for American families, and advance racial justice and inclusion,’ says Neri.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise CEO Antonio Neri has sent a formal letter to President-elect Joe Biden offering his and HPE’s help in battling COVID-19 and rebuilding the U.S. economy.

“I want you to know that HPE is committed to working constructively with your administration to leverage information technology, including high performance computing (HPC), to fight COVID-19, further scientific discovery and rebuild the U.S. economy in a manner that supports the well-being of all Americans, bridge the digital divide to foster greater opportunity for American families, and advance racial justice and inclusion,” said Neri in an open letter to President-elect Biden on an HPE blog post.

(Related: Meeting The Moment: HPE CEO Antonio Neri’s Year Of Extraordinary Leadership)

Neri urged Biden not to hesitate to call upon him or any of HPE’s top talent as the president-elect convenes the COVID-19 task force.

“HPE maintains the commitment we made from the start of the pandemic to provide dedicated scientists, engineers, and computing systems to accelerate the research and discovery of a vaccine and new medicines and therapeutics to fight COVID-19,” said Neri.

Neri, who was named the No. 1 most influential executive in CRN’s Top 100 executives of 2020, has stepped up on one front after another to help partners through the crises. That includes $2 billion in financing for an HPE Financial Services Payment Relief Program and increased liquidity for partners.

On the COVID-19 front, HPE high-performance computing teams are working with leading research centers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory and Oak Ridge National Laboratory to “better understand the new COVID-19 strain and develop drug treatments,” said Neri.

HPE is also partnering with the COVID-19 High Performance Computing Consortium with the (Department of Energy) DoE and other industry and academic organizations to provide supercomputing software and applications expertise free of charge to help researchers port, run, and optimize essential applications to combat this pandemic,” said Neri.

As for the economy, Neri said, HPE supports the president-elect’s “ambitious plan to get America’s workforce back on its feet and accelerate the nation’s transformation towards a true 21st century” digital economy.

In working with federal, state and local governments, HPE has seen firsthand the “importance of providing robust funding for our digital infrastructure with the same urgency” as physical infrastructure, said Neri.

“Now more than ever, government systems are in need of comprehensive modernization, and uncertain federal and state budgets necessitate that we look at more creative ways of acquiring technology” said Neri, referencing HPE’s GreenLake pay-per-use cloud service.

“We are eager to partner with your administration on innovative approaches to modernize our nation’s digital infrastructure -- helping our economy recover and evolve well into the future,” said Neri.

HPE is also looking forward to supporting the Administration’s efforts to “rebuild relationships with our allies and trading partners and to strengthen and modernize the rules-based multilateral trading system while leveling the playing field for American workers and creating new markets for our exports,” said Neri.

HPE is also ready to help the federal government bridge the “digital divide” for students by “extending outdoor Wi-Fi for schools and public buildings, outfitting buses with wireless technology and driving them into low-income neighborhoods,” said Neri. He said HPE would also like to help establish “more permanent enterprise-level solutions that provide equitable access to the internet” for entire communities of students and their families.

“HPE is ready to help your team hit the ground running to address this challenge and treat access to connectivity as a basic need for all Americans, especially for our students, small businesses and underserved communities,” he said.

Finally, Neri said HPE is “committed to unconditional inclusion, and believe it is incumbent upon those of us with means and platforms to create change by taking action to advance racial justice and equity.”

HPE, in fact, has established a global HPE Inclusion and Diversity Council to develop a detailed plan to ensure “equal opportunities” for all HPE employees.

“The feedback my leadership team and I gathered through conversations with our diverse team member groups have informed a series of actions our company is taking to accelerate racial inclusion in our workforce,” said Neri. “I am eager to partner with your administration on efforts to advance this critical imperative for our country.”

A top executive for an enterprise HPE partner, who did not want to be identified, praised Neri for stepping up to let Biden know that HPE and its partners can provide critical IT services to the government on COVID-19 and other issues.

“It’s great that Antonio is letting Biden and his team know that HPE is here and ready to help,” he said. “It’s a smart move by Antonio to let the Biden team know that HPE has a lot of talented people that can assist the federal government.”