The AI Revolution in Government Networking: From Infrastructure Cost to Strategic Asset

Network infrastructure has historically been treated as a passive connectivity tool by state government agencies, but that perspective is now being challenged. The advent of AI-powered networking solutions has provided them a transformative opportunity to invest often limited resources into something with a strong ROI. It has become an intelligent security and service delivery platform to drive down costs while also enhancing citizen services. 

AI in networking is a timely development. Chronic staffing shortages are colliding with aging infrastructure demands, while citizens have ever-broadening expectations of the digital services provided to them by the government. Deploying networking technology with AI embedded within it is increasingly seen as a strategic choice. 

"In the past, the network has just been considered as a cost.  This is no longer the case." Elissa McCormick, Senior Manager – Product, Solutions & Enablement - Asia Pacific, Japan & China at HPE Aruba Networking, said.  

Agencies have no choice but to take a renewed look at the networking environment. As diverse devices flood government networks, from tablets used for meeting room bookings to personal devices and IoT sensors, traditional networking approaches are being overwhelmed. Each device type requires different security policies and management approaches, creating complexity that manual management cannot handle. 

"One good example of this is that one iPad might be being used as a portal to manage meeting room bookings... while another is an employee’s personal device" McCormick said. "But they’re both iPads, so the device itself isn’t going to give us enough information about the different roles that they're playing."  

This is where AI capabilities become crucial, using behavioural analysis to understand device patterns and automatically apply appropriate security policies. 

Another area where AI addresses one of government's biggest challenges is in support: "Organisations never have enough people... so, a role that AI is playing is to help them minimise the time that they're spending on business-as-usual activities," McCormick said.  

Instead of IT teams spending hours or days troubleshooting network issues, AI systems detect problems, identify root causes, and present recommendations for resolution. 

This operational transformation extends beyond troubleshooting. "What our AI is doing is minimising the guesswork required by giving recommendations based on what it sees happening in their environment." McCormick said. As such, IT operators can gain even greater visibility, no matter how complex their infrastructure.  

Data-Driven Excellence at Scale 

HPE's approach to AI networking is built on massive scale and continuous learning. As highlighted at HPE Discover Las Vegas in June 2025, HPE leverages data from six million devices and three billion endpoints across diverse environments, and these are figures that continue to grow as more organisations adopt AI-powered networking solutions. This vast data lake enables the system to understand what "normal" looks like for different organisations and departments, creating baseline behaviours that make anomaly detection highly accurate. 

This intelligence proves particularly valuable for security and compliance, which are of particular concern to state governments. For example, agency networks must continuously monitor IoT devices to prevent scenarios where connected devices unexpectedly transmit data offshore. "We've all heard the story where the connected fish tank, TV or HVAC system suddenly started transmitting gigabytes of data," McCormick said. Without AI-powered visibility, identifying and addressing these insertion points becomes extremely challenging. 

HPE's expertise in this space has earned recognition from Gartner, which positioned HPE Aruba Networking as a Leader in the 2025 Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Wired and Wireless LAN Infrastructure, marking the 19th consecutive time the company has achieved this distinction. This track record demonstrates sustained innovation in areas critical to government operations: security, reliability, and intelligent network management. 

Critically, HPE solutions enable organisations to consume the platform in the way they want, giving customers choice in how and why they leverage networking solutions. For government organisations with varying data sovereignty requirements, this flexibility is essential. Some agencies are comfortable with offshore cloud services, while others require all services to remain within Australia or even in local data centres. 

"We recognise that governments in particular have a varying level of appetite for cloud-hosted services," McCormick said. "We don't take cloud as a location. We take cloud as a set of design principles and allow our customers to consume data in a way that best suits their needs and objectives.” 

The evidence is clear: networks have evolved from cost centres to strategic assets that are central to the ability of governments to deliver services. AI-powered networking solutions offer state governments the opportunity to transform their infrastructure challenges into efficencies, freeing IT teams to focus on innovation rather than firefighting. 

The complexity of modern government networks demands intelligent management, and AI provides the tools to deliver secure, efficient, and reliable services that citizens expect. The time to act on that is now. 

Ready to explore how AI-powered networking can transform your government operations? Learn more about HPE Aruba Networking’s comprehensive solutions at https://www.hpe.com/au/en/aruba-central.html.