Care for some more speculative dot-joining?
I wonder which company in the Edge AI space (pun intended) would be able to assist HPE (Hewlett Packard Enterprise) in processing data on the surface of the moon from 2026 onwards and also happens to have a CEO that used to work for HPE?
HPE, Astrolab will take edge computing to the moon in 2026
By
Tommy Clift Jul 3, 2023 08:04am
HPE's Norm Follett outlined the company's plans to “hitch a ride” on Astrolab’s Flexible Logistics and Exploration (FLEX) rover set to be launched on a SpaceX mission to the moon in mid-2026. (NASA)
Artificial intelligence (AI) isn’t just taking over planet Earth, it’s also expanding its influence in space with a little help from HPE. The company recently unveiled plans to bring AI-enabled edge computing services to the moon via an Astrolab rover set to launch in 2026.
HPE initially brought edge computing and AI technology to space with the launch of Spaceborne Computer-2 (SBC-2),
installed onto the International Space Station (ISS) in May of 2021. The SBC-2 packed a one-two punch with its
Edgeline Converged EL4000 Edge system and the
ProLiant DL360 server to provide a system capable of withstanding harsh space environments and enabling workloads across edge, high performance compute (HPC) and AI.
The SBC-2 was part of HPE’s “greater mission to significantly advance computing and reduce dependence on communications as humans travel farther into space, to the Moon, Mars and beyond,” according to an
update the company posted last year. At the time, it announced the completion of 24 data processing experiments using the SBC-2. Those experiments spanned across healthcare, natural disaster recovery, image processing, 3D printing, 5G and AI-enabled solutions in an effort to “prove reliability in space.”
During HPE Discover earlier this month, company officials sat down with executives from AstroLab and Axiom to discuss various moves to expand this work.
HPE Senior Director of Space Technologies and Solutions Norm Follett during the discussion outlined plans to “hitch a ride” on Astrolab’s Flexible Logistics and Exploration (FLEX) rover set to be launched on a SpaceX mission to the moon in mid-2026. In this case, the hitchhiker will be SBC technology attached to the rover, which will provide data services to both HPE and AstroLab customers.
“We’re actually able to take 1500 kilograms of customer cargo with us,” Astrolab CEO Jaret Matthews stated. “We anticipate that a lot of our customers are going to want to make use of the edge-computing service on our platform provided by HPE.”
He explained that for the first few years of the rover’s expedition, data will be the priority export .
HPE’s edge-computing power will enable the rover to ship back fully-formed “insight” rather than pieces of a puzzle, Matthews continued. “If you can produce a refined map, rather than 1000s of images, you save yourself bandwidth,” he explained.
Follett emphasized that “there’s still some work to do” ahead of the mission. The two companies have a reservation agreement, but they still need to work through additional business details including how customers will take advantage of the service. They also still need to "solve a lot of technical challenges," he said.
“Right now, we are 254 miles up in space. We are at the edge; we have the most powerful computer to ever go into space. That’s not deep space; it’s low earth orbit. And we’re gonna go further,” Follett concluded.
Breaking boundaries: How Astrolab and HPE are redefining edge computing in space - SiliconANGLE
siliconangle.com
Coverage from SiliconANGLE's livestreaming video studio
UPDATED 12:19 EDT / JUNE 22 2023
EMERGING TECH
Breaking boundaries: How Astrolab and HPE are redefining edge computing in space
BY
CHAD WILSON
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Space exploration has always captured the imagination of humanity, pushing the boundaries of what we thought was possible.
In the quest to explore new frontiers, innovative partnerships are being formed to revolutionize space technology. One such partnership between Venturi Astrolab Inc., a startup specializing in planetary robotic systems, and Hewlett Packard Enterprise Co., is set to redefine the future of space exploration.
Jaret Matthews (pictured, right), founder and chief executive officer of Astrolab, joined theCUBE at HPE Discover to talk about Astrolab’s and HPE’s partnership and the innovations that are coming out of the partnership in edge computing, as well as the future of computational science in space.
“Astrolab is developing the next link in the transportation network for the solar system,” Matthews said.
Matthews and
Norm Follett (pictured), director of global technical marketing at HPE, spoke with theCUBE industry analysts
Dave Vellante and
Lisa Martin at
HPE Discover, during an exclusive broadcast on theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s livestreaming studio. They discussed the HPE/Astrolab partnership and how the companies are leveraging cutting-edge technology to overcome challenges and pave the way to the moon and beyond.
(* Disclosure below.)
Astrolab’s mission to develop planetary robotic systems
Astrolab, a startup founded three years ago, is making waves in the space exploration industry. Based in Los Angeles, the company is focused on developing novel planetary robotic systems. Matthews brings a wealth of experience from his time at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Space Exploration Technologies Corp., where he worked on projects such as the Mars rovers and spacecraft mechanisms.
With the imminent launch of SpaceX’s Starship lander, which is set to be the largest rocket ever created, Matthews believes that Astrolab can pave the way for groundbreaking missions on the moon and eventually Mars.
“Having spent seven years at that organization myself, I’m very confident that they’re gonna get there,” Matthews said when speaking of SpaceX. “You know, they’re trying something that’s extremely hard, but they have a really incredible team and deep, deep experience now and accomplishing really hard goals. I have every confidence that they’ll get there.”
Revolutionizing data transmission from the moon with HPE
One of the key challenges faced by those operating on the moon is limited bandwidth for data transmission back to Earth. To tackle this issue, Astrolab has formed a strategic partnership with HPE to leverage its edge-computing capabilities.
The partnership aims to revolutionize the way data is processed and transmitted from the lunar surface. Rather than sending vast amounts of raw data, Astrolab and HPE are working together to extract valuable insights locally, using edge computing. This approach not only optimizes bandwidth usage, but also enables more efficient and meaningful data analysis.
“For the first five or 10 years of lunar development, in the coming decade, the main export from the lunar surface is going to be data,” Matthews said, when talking about the significance of the collaboration.
By harnessing HPE’s expertise in edge computing, Astrolab aims to maximize the value derived from lunar missions and accelerate the exploration of the moon as a stepping stone to Mars.
Drawing a parallel between the current developments in space exploration and the building of railroads to California in 1870, Matthews highlighted the economic opportunities presented by expanding humanity’s reach beyond the current horizon, with influential figures, such as Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk, investing billions of dollars in developing a transportation network for the moon.
As Astrolab and HPE forge ahead with their partnership, the prospects for space exploration and the utilization of edge computing in space are set to soar. With the moon becoming the next frontier of exploration and economic potential, Astrolab’s groundbreaking work will help to shape the future of space travel and scientific discovery.
“Soon it will become not only frequent, but economical to send stuff to the moon,” Matthews added.
Here’s the complete video interview, part of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of
HPE Discover:
(* Disclosure: This is an unsponsored editorial segment. However, theCUBE is a paid media partner for HPE Discover. Hewlett Packard Enterprise Co., Intel Corp. and other sponsors of theCUBE’s event coverage have no editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)
Photo: SiliconANGLE
If you’ve read so far and were pretty confident about the possibility of Akida being integrated but then got disheartened when spotting “Intel” in the above disclosure (“Oh, so it must be Loihi then…”), let me tell you this:
While Intel is one of the biggest HPE Discover event sponsors (a so-called Emerald Sponsor, alongside Kioxia, Microsoft and vmware - NVIDIA, AMD, Samsung, AWS are “merely” Platinum Sponsors) and were also given ample opportunity to market their Xeon processors and what not, no one from Intel was present for the above “edge computing in space” interview with the HPE/Venturi Astrolab representatives, which leads me to (naively?) conclude that Intel is not involved in this project.
Moreover, in another interview from the June 20-22 HPE Discover 2023 Edge-To-Cloud Conference in Las Vegas, HPE CEO Antonio Neri made some interesting remarks, such as
From 2:32 min:
“
And last but not least obviously was AI. Because everything is about AI. And we have a right to play with a unique - you know - intellectual property and we announce - I think - a bold move to offer the first language model available as a service that you can privately train your data in a sustainable environment… To me the most important metric, Lisa, is the customer feedback. I come here to listen and - not just to tell, but to listen - and gather what is next in their minds, so we can continue to address those challenges.”
And lo and behold, a couple of minutes later,
Antonio Neri even mentions a three-legged stool, albeit his sturdy piece of furniture is a bit different from Sean Hehir’s.
From 8:34 min:
“…
I mean, we cannot innovate everything. But to me innovation is a three-legged stool: Number one is our organic innovation - GreenLake is a great example of that (…) as people are coming now, saying AI is a big opportunity, a big investment - we already invested 2.6 billion $ in that business since 2019, and you mentioned some of the acquisitions, but
, you know, the other piece of this is that you have to complement your, you know, own innovation with external innovation, because the other thing you have to think about is bring different type of talent. And every acquisition we have brought, brought that different way to think about issues or solutions, and that complemented our talent. And then the third piece of this is the broader partner ecosystem, and part of the partner ecosystem is to make strategic bets in small, you know, call it “start up companies”…”
From 12:13 min: “We have the infrastructure to run at a scale,
because we have unique IP both on the silicon side that allows us to give openness and choice to customers … and then the software, the software to really optimise that infrastructure to the workload (?) that really differentiates us.
And he goes on emphasising
sustainability…
