Hewlett Packard Enterprise has officially opened its new base in Bristol in a move that extends the US tech giant’s links with the city to more than four decades.
The Lake View office in Stoke Gifford will serve as a hub for the firm’s UK research and development and engineering teams, accommodating more than 200 staff driving innovation in the areas of storage, supercomputing, hybrid cloud and cybersecurity. 
The site includes a range of working environments, including labs, collaboration spaces and focus areas designed to maximise flexibility and wellness.
Hewlett Packard Enterprise’s (HPE) presence in Bristol started off with an assembly facility for storage drives, going on to evolve into a world-leading centre for R&D.
HP Labs and HPE storage engineers based in Filton have since been responsible for 300-plus technology patents, many of them now on display at the new Lake View site.
During its time in Bristol, HPE has also developed thousands of highly skilled technology professionals.
The move to Lake View brings together the HPE storage, hybrid cloud and HP Labs engineering teams with the HPE Cray supercomputing teams at one facility in the city for the first time.
Cray supercomputing, whose European HQ was in Bristol city centre, was acquired by HPE in 2019.
The HPE Cray team in Bristol are pioneers in application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) design and high-performance networking for supercomputers.
They have contributed to some of the world’s largest supercomputers, including the world’s fastest supercomputer, Frontier, and the University of Bristol’s Isambard-AI supercomputer.
The teams have previously operated out of separate sites and the consolidation of the two sites into one promises to supercharge HPE’s R&D efforts in the city as the teams find new ways to collaborate. The office also operates as a sales base for the South West.
HPE senior vice president and managing director, UK, Ireland, Middle East and Africa, Matt Harris, said: “Now is the perfect time to bring our storage, cloud, Labs and supercomputing R&D teams together under one roof as we accelerate into the AI era.
“I am very proud of HPE’s legacy of over 40 years operating in Bristol, training thousands of high-tech workers and contributing to the region’s tech ecosystem.
“Bristol has served as the ideal home for our R&D teams and I’m excited to see our teams coming together at Lake View to foster the innovation and growth that is needed to keep the UK at the forefront of research and development.”
HPE continues to invest in training and upskilling those starting out their careers in Bristol, with interns and graduates making up a large part of the team of more than 200 at the site.
In recent years, HPE has optimised its office experience to promote flexibility and choice in an era of hybrid working while maintaining a strong culture and connectedness.
