SEMPRE, a digital infrastructure company led by Brigadier General (ret) Robert Spalding and a team of national security and telecom pioneers, emerged from stealth mode. SEMPRE (Secure EMP-Resistant Edge) provides military-grade 5G and high performance edge computing infrastructure for telecom operators, first responders, government and enterprise customers. 

SEMPRE accelerates the transition toward decentralized digital infrastructure by leveraging distributed edge computing optimized for artificial intelligence—making its customers’ networks stronger and reducing data transport, while providing them with new revenue opportunities. Governments, enterprises and other entities are seeking ways to provide greater data security for customers and citizens, however, legacy infrastructure has proven to be unsafe and unreliable. Recognizing critical gaps in even the most advanced national security-oriented infrastructure projects, SEMPRE was formed to plug these gaps.

“As the recent Colonial Pipeline attack and many others have demonstrated, we need to provide better security for our national infrastructure,” said Brigadier General (ret) Robert Spalding, CEO of SEMPRE and former senior director of strategy at the National Security Council. “I began working on secure network technology when I was at the Pentagon, as I passionately believe that data will become our most critical resource and its protection is paramount. In contrast to the physical world, the Internet has operated with an open-door policy.” 

SEMPRE’s towers are based on proprietary technology that combines radio, base station and high performance edge computing in a single enclosure that has been designed for mission-critical communications and built to military-grade hardening requirements. SEMPRE quickly bolsters existing networks and helps to augment weaknesses in the current fabric of network infrastructure. Using its technology, customers and network providers can move toward a true 5G experience that offers end-to-end security, ultra-low latency and superior processing speeds at the edge in an integrated and cost-effective solution. SEMPRE’s technology is optimized for advanced autonomy to ensure service survivability across challenging environments while enabling last-mile connectivity to even the most remote communities. 

“Telecom networks today, even first responder networks like PPDR, have a fundamental flaw in the flow of information. Using centralized hubs for data reduces speed and introduces security risks,” said Marcus Owenby, CTO of SEMPRE and formerly head of Customer Experience and Innovation at AT&T FirstNet. “We’re providing a solution that doesn’t require full rip-and-replace of network components. Instead, we allow operators to overlay their systems with sophisticated technology that operates at the true network edge, providing enhanced security, low latency and faster speeds, while working to heal the network vulnerabilities from the inside out.”

“Having seen firsthand the rapidly increasing sophistication of the ways in which our telecom hardware and software are exploited by a variety of actors, we believe a fundamentally different approach is required to ensure the transition to next generation networks is an asset, not a liability,” said Jim Penrose, president of SEMPRE and formerly of cybersecurity company BlueVoyant and the National Security Agency.

SEMPRE is wholly owned by critical infrastructure and national security investment company American Strategic Investment Partners (ASIP). Spalding, co-founder of ASIP, said, “SEMPRE fits squarely within ASIP’s mission by providing critical technologies purpose-built to military-grade standards for the most demanding customers in the world. SEMPRE’s capabilities are complementary to ASIP’s other investments and offer many different avenues of collaboration at the intersection of space, defense, telecommunications and cybersecurity that meet the rapidly converging needs of our customers.”