HPE's Andrew Wheeler: why sovereign AI starts with security
Key points
Key takeaways from theCUBE interview with HP Enterprise HPE Fellow, Deputy CTO and Director of HPE Labs Andrew Wheeler at the HPE Sovereign AI event (September 2026):
Sovereignty is now a boardroom priority. Alongside AI and quantum computing, sovereignty has become one of three topics that surface in every external customer conversation Andrew Wheeler holds.
Security is built into HPE's design life cycle. Secure development practices and mandatory security training for engineers sit alongside Juniper's firewall technology and HPE Zerto's backup-and-recovery services, extending security beyond infrastructure itself.
Agentic AI shrinks patch windows to machine speed. Expanding attack surfaces mean vulnerabilities can be discovered and exploited before patches take hold, so HPE is applying live-migration and live-upgrade techniques from mission-critical computing to get fixes deployed faster.
Post-quantum cryptography is a here-and-now issue. Adversaries are already harvesting encrypted data to decrypt when cryptographically relevant quantum computers arrive,and US and European mandates will require quantum-proof algorithms by set deadlines - HPE has run its own PQC inventory for years and advises customers through the same exercise.
Sovereignty is a spectrum, not data residency alone. It spans legal compliance, operational control, an open tech stack with choice and optionality,and financial sustainability - blowing an annual AI token budget in one quarter is an anti-sovereign pattern, per Wheeler.
Regulation is accelerating the sovereignty wave. Over 170 countries have enacted data-protection frameworks,and instruments such as the EU Cyber Resilience Act are extending that momentum to AI-era technology.
Agentic security calls for defense in depth. With no single answer,HPE argues for secure foundations at every layer - servers, storage, networking and management - plus visibility, alerting and response,citing the OpenAI/Hugging Face incident as proof even well-intentioned agents can create risk.
Quantum networking and confidential computing come next. HPE Labs is exploring quantum key distribution,which uses quantum properties to distribute encryption keys securely,and confidential computing to protect data during active computation - not just at rest and in transit.
Security underpins every sovereign AI strategy. From patch cycles measured in minutes to nations racing to secure their own quantum future,Wheeler makes the case that security is the foundation sovereignty must be built on.
Read more: SiliconANGLE · theCUBE
