HPE goes for gold with Winter Olympics network performance

HPE has revealed its part in ensuring connectivity at the 2026 Winter Olympics, in a deployment that sees the first major event with not just its own technology and services, but also those from acquisition Juniper Networks.

Milano Cortina 2026 covers an area of in excess of 22,000 square kilometres – the most geographically dispersed Olympics in history – with more than 40 sites at over 15 venues, highlighting the actions of 3,000 athletes participating in 116 events covering 19 disciplines.

From a technological basis, the provider of the network infrastructure for Milano Cortina also has to perform something totally unprecedented: delivering connectivity and data security with Olympian levels of stability, capacity, performance and scale. In practical terms, that meant creating such a network across more than 7.5% of Italy’s territory, and with the two main event locations more than 400km apart, connecting a multitude of devices from organisers, athletes, media, broadcasters and fans alike.

“The scale of any Olympics is enormous by nature,” said Giuseppe Civale, director of ICT infrastructure and venue technologies for the Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics. “This year’s Games are no exception. As the action, grandeur and drama stream their way across the globe, it’s all being delivered by millions of secure connections so it can be viewed by billions. The Games are built on unrepeatable athletic moments that occur live in the venue, and broadcast remotely to the world.

“Our network needs the highest grade of performance and stability – from the datacentre down to each access point. We’re serving an unprecedented amount of high‑resolution 8K footage to more than 200 rights holders that will eventually broadcast the Games to the world. Trust has to be inherent along with scalability and security.”

HPE noted that with so much riding on the event’s success, “it was not surprising that the Olympics demand absolute trust, deep intelligence, and flawless execution when it comes to data management and network design”.

The network comprises the HPE Mist AIOPs platform to support full-stack, self-driving operations; over 4,900+ access points; more than 1,500 EX ethernet switches; 70+ MX universal routers; 50+ SRX next‑gen firewalls; 30+ smart session routers; and more than 40 connected venues and locations. 

HPE Mist has been deployed to power optimised performance, learning traffic patterns to gain advanced knowledge of potential bottlenecks, whether it’s an athlete accessing real-time performance data, a broadcaster streaming video or a fan connecting with the Olympic app. This is supported by HPE Marvis Copilot, the use of which is intended to further enhance network health and management with conversational, interactive understanding, offering real-time network analytics to proactive troubleshooting and optimised user experiences.

In addition to the sheer scale of the geographic reach, the network had to offer support for a number of key use cases, each with its own particular network stress vectors, such as such as retail, ticketing, security, crowd safety and control, broadcast content acquisition, and delivery.

For James Robertson, HP field chief technology officer of networking, the network for the Winter Olympics had to be built on trust, meaning AI-native from day one. It had to be secure by design with security woven into its fabric, delivering proven performance at a global scale and then delivering actionable real-time insights from the unified platform. He also noted that beyond the games, the network had unseen challenges to address. That is, delivering instant results and data feeds; ensuring uninterrupted live broadcasts; facilitating rapid content dissemination; and supporting interactive fan engagement.

And, he stressed, without a strong network foundation, you don’t have everything else. “You’re building a house, you don’t start with the walls and then try and work up to the roof,” said Robertson.

“You start with the foundation. You make sure the foundation is strong, robust. It’s going to do what it says it needs to do. It’s going to hold that structure together. So, the foundation is incredibly important for every experience that we want to put on top. We are fundamentally behind organisations making sure that they deliver the experiences they need that drive the requirements that they need to perform. This all starts with this foundation.

“Just think of the enormity of the scale of what’s going on here at the Olympics, spread out across all of Northern Italy, all the way into the mountains,” he continued. “We have to make sure that that experience applies to those 3,000 athletes, day in and day out, that they get to communicate with their coaches, they get to communicate with the fans, also they get to communicate with their families. They need that support structure. We need to make sure that we’re driving a fabric that takes you all the way down to zero trust, so that we know for sure that the things that are happening on the infrastructure are the things that are expected.”