HEWLETT PACKARD ENTERPRISE: The Possession

Four weeks before Chase Center officially opened its doors in September, the new home of the Golden State Warriors, located in downtown San Francisco, was still a work in progress. Hard-hatted workers filled the service tunnels; plastic and cardboard covered the furniture in the luxury suites and lounges; and the venue's giant scoreboard—measuring nearly 10,000 square feet—rested on the arena floor, blinking test-pattern colors.

But the construction site belied the state-of-the-art capabilities that would be unveiled at the arena in the coming weeks. Embedded with an arsenal of next-gen technology from Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Chase Center represents a big step toward the future of live sports—a future that will revolutionize nearly every aspect of the fan experience, made possible using data at the edge.

What is the edge? At its heart, the edge allows an unprecedented amount of data to be collected and processed at its exact source—hundreds of times faster than before—enabling next-level digital and personalized experiences. At the arenas of the future, this will give basketball fans the ability to track microstats, watch the action through AR glasses, and interact with enhanced second-screen experiences. More than that, it will mean complete customization, wherein fans choose how they experience the game, while arenas cater to these preferences. Indeed, the way fans engage with even a single possession will be completely transformed by the edge.

The applications of the edge span beyond sports, too, covering everything from healthcare to hospitality to transportation. Autonomous vehicles, for instance, will rely on the edge, as will doctors performing remote surgery. "These things are completely impossible without the ability to process this data at the edge," says Lin Nease, HPE's chief technologist for IoT. Or to put it another way: The edge is truly a game changer.

Possession