Among other clients, HPE is a giant defense contractor supporting military hardware and software.

HPE also inherited HP's research labs, which Dell never quite had anything similar too, and medical division where they make a lot of very important medical/hospital devices.

ETA: HP at one point was much more similar to GE than Dell, and HPE is all the "fun" stuff that wasn't Dell-like. (The Dell like side is what got spun off into "new" HP.)

HPE still has labs? Note the last time anything was published by labs... https://www.labs.hpe.com/publications

Last I heard they were still working hard on The Machine. But I hear stuff about HPE second hand, so I have no clue.

Is the machine still a labs effort or something now being turned into a product? Organizationally it matters.

That is a very good question. I don't think I've seen anything other PR spin on the subject that felt like it couldn't make up its mind how soon The Machine may be productized.

Last I tried to read one of those PR articles (probably posted here to HN), it sounded like memristors still exist as active research, even though that was supposed to be the gamechanging basis of The Machine, but they are The Machine branding software projects now and non-memristor product tech that is kind of memristor-esque.

But again, that's merely my mostly hearsay-informed, lay readings of tea leaves.

(It's starting to feel a bit like IBM's Watson where the "brand" The Machine has multiple meanings depending on which team/marketer/sales-person/researcher you are talking to.)