Dive Brief:

• Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) on Tuesday introduced a new computer prototype that the company says can manage more data than any other system like it in the world, reports Fortune.

• HPE said the prototype contains 160 terabytes of memory. That's enough computing power to manage the data found in 160 million books — simultaneously. 

• The system is part of "The Machine" research project, but the prototype is years away from being commercially available, HPE said.

Dive Insight:

HPE, like other legacy tech companies including IBM and Intel, wants to pave the way for companies to delve into AI, machine learning and other cognitive technologies. But doing so means providing access to technology that can enable businesses to handle huge amounts of data without getting bogged down. While several efforts are underway, what exactly that tech will look like is anyone's guess. HPE is betting "The Machine" might be the answer.

Earlier this week, IBM and Nutanix announced they will work together to enable IBM to deliver Nutanix's Enterprise Cloud Platform software on IBM's Power servers to provide yet another avenue for companies to make compute-intense processes possible.

Given the interest in making high-performance computers viable in the enterprise, HPE's prototype and other innovations signal that it won't be long before more of these types of solutions are introduced.