Hewlett Packard Enterprise nears $13-B deal to buy Juniper Networks- WSJ

Signs for Hewlett Packard Enterprise Co., cover the facade of the New York Stock Exchange Nov 2, 2015. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid

Hewlett Packard Enterprise is in advanced talks to buy network gear maker Juniper Networks for about $13 billion to bolster the nearly 100-year-old technology company’s artificial intelligence (AI) offerings, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday.

A deal between the two companies could be announced as soon as this week, according to the report, citing people familiar with the matter.

Shares in HPE fell 7.7 percent, while Juniper jumped 21 percent in extended trading.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise declined to comment on the report, while Juniper Networks did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.

READ: Tech giants jockey for position at dawn of AI age

Last year, server maker HPE said that it was rolling out a cloud computing service designed to power AI systems similar to ChatGPT.

Juniper’s high-performance network and service offerings include routing, switching, Wireless Fidelity (Wi-Fi), network security, AI-enabled enterprise networking operations (AIOps), and software-defined networking (SDN) technologies.