HPE announces world’s first “quantum resistant” servers with Xeon 6-powered ProLiant Compute Gen12 portfolio

HPE (Hewlett Packard Enterprise) has announced eight ProLiant Compute Gen12 servers, all powered by Intel’s Xeon 6 processors. Six of the ProLiant Compute servers will go on sale in Q1 2025, with a further two expected to ship in summer 2025.

During a pre-briefing event, Krista Satterthwaite, Senior VP and General Manager of Compute at Hewlett Packard Enterprise, explained that the “new portfolio will feature leading security to safeguard what’s important from chip to cloud”, which includes quantum-resistant security features.

In addition, she said, the new ProLiant Compute Gen12 servers included “enhanced AI-driven management features to boost productivity while maximizing time and resources”.

The initial releases are of the HPE ProLiant Compute DL320, DL340, DL360, DL380, DL380a and ML350 Gen12 servers. The HPE Synergy 480 and HPE ProLiant Compute DL580 Gen12 servers are due in the summer.

Quantum-resistant servers

HPE claims the new ProLiant Compute Gen12 servers are the world’s first to meet the FIPS 140-3 Level 3 certification, designed to resist attacks from quantum computers.

While quantum computers may be decades away, any encrypted data stolen today will be at risk in the future. This is why the US government in particular is insisting on servers that meet the FIPS certification.

“All of our ProLiant Gen 12 servers are quantum computing resistant ready so we’re not just protecting them from yesterday’s threats and today’s threats, but from future threats that [may develop] when quantum computing comes out,” said Satterthwaite.

She added that HPE will pursuing FIPS certification and that it was made possible “through the new HPE ILO with Secure Enclave capability for enhanced physical and digital intrusion resistance”.

We provide more details of how HPE is building quantum resistance into its ProLiant Compute Gen12 portfolio in a separate article.

HPE ProLiant Compute Gen12 efficiency optimisations

One of the reasons HPE has simultaneously announced eight new servers is that it wants to offer businesses the right size of computer for their workloads.

“One of the top challenges our customers have is choosing the right size server for the workload at hand,” said Satterthwaite, “but it still needs to have the ability to adapt to more or new use cases.”

HPE believes that the ProLiant Compute Gen12 portfolio provides that flexibility, ranging from servers geared towards AI — for example, the existing ProLiant 384 features Nvidia’s Grace Hopper 200 NVL accelerators — to others optimised for density.

As a quick summary, here is how HPE labelled the range during the call:

Why Intel Xeon 6 and not AMD?

All eight servers are based around Intel’s latest Xeon 6 processors. All of the new DL range support Xeons with up to 144 cores, while the ML350 supports Xeon 6 processors with up to 86 P-cores (performant cores).

So why not support AMD? “It’s just a timing thing,” said Satterthwaite. “HPE IP innovation is available now, the Intel processors are available now, so they get the refresh, and then anything we introduce after this, expect to see the same innovations from us.”

In short, when AMD next announces an update to its Epyc line of server chips it’s quite likely we will see HPE creating solutions that take advantage of their particular abilities.

The right size HPE ProLiant Compute Gen12 servers

As we covered at the top of this article, Satterthwaite mentioned HPE’s ambition to have the right size of server for every company and usage. As you go up the range, the more powerful the servers become, and thus the increase in capacity in terms of users.

But the other side of the equation is type of use. To help navigate your options, then, here are the servers based on usage according to HPE’s slides.

For more information, see the summary slides for each new server in the gallery below.

How to buy HPE ProLiant Compute Gen12 servers

Each member of the HPE ProLiant Compute Gen12 portfolio will be available for purchase on its own. Alternatively, companies can buy via HPE GreenLake, with the promise of improved scalability, cost efficiency and service agility.

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