‘Our work for Milano-Cortina is helping create a new generation of network’: HPE tells us what it takes to be the network backbone of the 2026 Winter Olympics
The 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan-Cortina were one of the most demanding in modern times, spread across three regions in northern Italy, making them the most geographically extensive games.
So, with more than 3,000 athletes needing reliable coverage and connection across 40 venues and venues across 22,000 square kilometers, the challenge was set for HPE, the Official Network Equipment Hardware Partner of the Winter Olympics.
“It’s much more than just connectivity”
“Our work for Milan-Cortina helps create a new generation of AI-driven, secure and automated networking,” said Claudio Bassoli, MD, HPE Italy, at a media event in Milan attended by TechRadar Pro.
“It’s about more than just connectivity, it’s about creating an ecosystem in which every interaction, every piece of content and every operational decision is made easier… networking is more than something bigger, an enabler of emotion, immersion and safety – it helps fans feel closer to the action, it helps media players play faster and helps organizers deliver truly world-class events with confidence.”
As Rami Rahim, senior vice president, president and general manager of networks at HPE, notes, “existing networks are not enough in the AI era, it’s as simple as that: it’s no longer about speeds and feeds, a working network is no longer necessarily a high-performance network.”
Nowhere is this more true than at the Olympics, where HPE expects petabytes of data to be transferred across more than a million connected devices, but the experience must also be seamless for visitors, coaches, media and the athletes themselves.
“Traditional networks were not designed for this type of gaming,” notes Stefano Andreucci, senior sales director for Southern Europe at HPE Networking. “They weren’t designed to do AI, native automation, end-to-end security and real-time adaptability. So we’re delivering an AI-native network that’s secure and easy to operate.”
The amount of hardware used reads like a shopping list for any cloud technology or infrastructure enthusiast: To support the 2026 Winter Olympics, HPE has deployed more than 4,900 access points, 1,500 EX Ethernet switches, more than 70 MX universal routers, more than 50 next-generation SRX firewalls, and more than 30 intelligent session routers.
All of this is managed and monitored by HPE Mist, the company’s cloud-native AI system and platform to manage all networks, allowing them to react and adapt in real time to dynamic, high-pressure environments such as a crowd leaving an event venue.
The company also employed Marvis, its AI assistant designed to help troubleshoot network issues, spotting problems before they become too big, saving the time needed for analysis, while training and upskilling staff much more quickly.
All of this comes together to form what Rahim says is the ideal autonomous network, capable of self-configuring, self-optimizing, and self-healing to hopefully cope with any workload or eventuality.
“I really feel like we are part of history,” concluded Rahim. “At HPE, we’ve always been very good at delivering critical networks and infrastructure – and I don’t think it gets more critical than this.”
“I believe these games will set a benchmark for how future events and games will be organized… that’s what the HPE Network does better than anyone else – and that’s why we were ultimately selected to be the Network Technology Partner for the Olympic Games.”
