HPE’s latest Juniper routers target large‑scale AI fabrics

HPE is taking the wraps off two new router families aimed at helping customers build the infrastructure needed to support large‑scale AI fabrics, distributed cloud environments, and data center interconnects (DCI).

At next week’s Mobile World Congress 2026, the vendor will introduce the additions to its core Juniper PTX Series routers: the high-end Juniper PTX12000 family, and the compact Juniper PTX10002 family targeted at data center edge and metro aggregation deployments. All are built on the Juniper Express 5 ASIC, which promises 49% better power efficiency than previous generations, according to Julius Francis, head of product marketing and strategy at HPE.

“AI is rewriting networks, and AI adoption is driving enterprise network traffic to AI data centers, and this impacts hyperscalers, neoclouds, and service partners who are building the infrastructure for these applications,” Francis told Network World. “Ultra-low latency and ultra reliability is not nice to have anymore. It’s required.”

New traffic patterns are coming into the mix, and they’re a lot more symmetric and more bursty, Francis said. Traditional networks that rely on oversubscription won’t work anymore, and that’s creating a lot of networking challenges. “The one main point is the fact that AI traffic, especially DCI traffic, is exploding,” Francis said. “AI factories and inferencing all need to be synced up all the time. So, it’s a great inflection point,” he said, as network operators consider what kind of networking platform they need to build and what type of architecture the AI network will require.

To that end, the new PTX12000 family features high-throughput efficiency, enables high-radix architecture, and provides deep buffering. Specifically, HPE says the PTX12000 800GbE family includes:

• The 8-slot, 22RU router Model PTX12008 offering up to 345.6 Tbps total bandwidth and the PTX12012, a 12-slot, 32RU router offering up to 518.4 Tbps total bandwidth.
• High-radix 43.2 Tbps line card, supporting 54 × 800GbE ports to deliver the throughput required for large‑scale AI traffic flows
• Full 800GbE ZR/ZR+ coherent optics support across all ports, with QSFP‑DD and OSFP flexibility
• Deep buffering to handle AI traffic bursts and maintain lossless performance
• Built-in security including line-rate MACsec encryption, distributed-denial-of-service (DDoS) protection, and hardware-based integrity protection
• Future support for 1.6T bandwidth, with modular power and advanced cooling to support multiple generations of line cards

The Juniper PTX10002 line of fixed-form 2U, 800GbE, 28.8 Tbps capacity routers is aimed at a variety of network roles, including peering, data center interconnect and data center edge, metro aggregation, and AI data center networking, according to Francis.

The three new models give customers several options for configurations and throughput capacity, but they all share support for the same deep buffers, security, and optics for AI network fabric buildouts, Francis said.

In addition to the new hardware, HPE added new AI support, including a Model Context Protocol (MCP) server, to the Juniper Routing Director to help customers build, configure, and optimize networks, Francis said. The Routing Director is the vendor’s routing automation and traffic engineering platform.

Juniper Routing Director provides structured, real-time context from across the WAN, HPE says, and it enables agentic AI, including a MCP server, to expose data and actions in a model-friendly way. “The result? With natural language, an AI assistant can go beyond analysis—it can act (with the right permissions) to orchestrate changes, validate configurations, run active tests, optimize services, and even help manage security patch workflows,” HPE wrote in a blog post about the enhancement.