| Page 212 | Kisaco Research

Author:

Richard Ho

Head of Hardware
OpenAI

Richard Ho is Head of Hardware at OpenAI working to co-optimize ML models and the massive compute hardware they run on. Richard was one of the early engineers working on Google TPUs. Before Google, Richard was part of the D. E. Shaw Research team that built the Anton molecular dynamics simulation supercomputer. Richard started his career as co-founder and Chief Architect of 0-In Design Automation, a pioneer in verification tools for chip design (acquired by Mentor Graphics/Siemens). Richard has a Ph.D. in Computer Science from Stanford University and M.Eng, B.Sc. from University of Manchester, UK.

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Richard Ho

Head of Hardware
OpenAI

Richard Ho is Head of Hardware at OpenAI working to co-optimize ML models and the massive compute hardware they run on. Richard was one of the early engineers working on Google TPUs. Before Google, Richard was part of the D. E. Shaw Research team that built the Anton molecular dynamics simulation supercomputer. Richard started his career as co-founder and Chief Architect of 0-In Design Automation, a pioneer in verification tools for chip design (acquired by Mentor Graphics/Siemens). Richard has a Ph.D. in Computer Science from Stanford University and M.Eng, B.Sc. from University of Manchester, UK.

Industrial Edge
On-Device ML
Enterprise Use Case

Author:

Sakyasingha Dasgupta

Founder & CEO
EdgeCortix

Sakya is the founder and Chief Executive officer of EdgeCortix. He is an artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning technologist, entrepreneur, and engineer with over a decade of experience in taking cutting edge AI research from ideation stage to scalable products, across different industry verticals.  He has lead teams at global companies like Microsoft and IBM Research / IBM Japan, along with national research labs like RIKEN Japan and the Max Planck Institute Germany. Previously, he helped establish and lead the technology division at lean startups in Japan and Singapore, in semiconductor technology, robotics and Fintech sectors. Sakya is the inventor of over 20 patents and has published widely on machine learning and AI with over 1,000 citations. 

Sakya holds a PhD. in Physics of Complex Systems from the Max Planck Institute in Germany, along with Masters in Artificial Intelligence from The University of Edinburgh and a Bachelors of Computer Engineering. Prior to founding EdgeCortix he completed his entrepreneurship studies from the MIT Sloan School of Management.

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Sakyasingha Dasgupta

Founder & CEO
EdgeCortix

Sakya is the founder and Chief Executive officer of EdgeCortix. He is an artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning technologist, entrepreneur, and engineer with over a decade of experience in taking cutting edge AI research from ideation stage to scalable products, across different industry verticals.  He has lead teams at global companies like Microsoft and IBM Research / IBM Japan, along with national research labs like RIKEN Japan and the Max Planck Institute Germany. Previously, he helped establish and lead the technology division at lean startups in Japan and Singapore, in semiconductor technology, robotics and Fintech sectors. Sakya is the inventor of over 20 patents and has published widely on machine learning and AI with over 1,000 citations. 

Sakya holds a PhD. in Physics of Complex Systems from the Max Planck Institute in Germany, along with Masters in Artificial Intelligence from The University of Edinburgh and a Bachelors of Computer Engineering. Prior to founding EdgeCortix he completed his entrepreneurship studies from the MIT Sloan School of Management.

Agentic and Gen AI
Enterprise Use Case

Author:

Donald Thompson

Distinguished Engineer
Microsoft

Donald is currently a Distinguished Engineer Microsoft, following his recent tenure as Distinguished Eningeer at LinkedIn, where he oversaw the company's generative AI strategy, architecture, and technology. He has more than 35 years of hands-on experience as a technical architect and CTO, with an extensive background in designing and delivering innovative software and services on a large scale. In 2013, Donald co-founded Maana, which pioneered computational knowledge graphs and visual no-code/low-code authoring environments to address complex AI-based digital transformation challenges in Fortune 50 companies. During his previous 15 years at Microsoft, Donald started the Knowledge and Reasoning group within Microsoft's Bing division, where he innovated "Satori", an internet-scale knowledge graph constructed automatically from the web crawl. He co-founded a semantic computing incubation funded directly by Bill Gates, portions of which shipped as the SQL Server Semantic Engine. Additionally, he created Microsoft's first internet display ad delivery system and led numerous AI/ML initiatives in Microsoft Research across embedded systems, robotics, wearable computing, and privacy-preserving personal data services.

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Donald Thompson

Distinguished Engineer
Microsoft

Donald is currently a Distinguished Engineer Microsoft, following his recent tenure as Distinguished Eningeer at LinkedIn, where he oversaw the company's generative AI strategy, architecture, and technology. He has more than 35 years of hands-on experience as a technical architect and CTO, with an extensive background in designing and delivering innovative software and services on a large scale. In 2013, Donald co-founded Maana, which pioneered computational knowledge graphs and visual no-code/low-code authoring environments to address complex AI-based digital transformation challenges in Fortune 50 companies. During his previous 15 years at Microsoft, Donald started the Knowledge and Reasoning group within Microsoft's Bing division, where he innovated "Satori", an internet-scale knowledge graph constructed automatically from the web crawl. He co-founded a semantic computing incubation funded directly by Bill Gates, portions of which shipped as the SQL Server Semantic Engine. Additionally, he created Microsoft's first internet display ad delivery system and led numerous AI/ML initiatives in Microsoft Research across embedded systems, robotics, wearable computing, and privacy-preserving personal data services.

Unlock massive AI workloads with Google's TPU innovations. We’ll discuss how TPUs enable efficient large-scale training and optimal inference workloads including exclusive details of the latest gen TPU system ( Ironwood),  differentiated chip design, data center infrastructure and software stack co-design that makes TPUs the most compelling choice for AI workloads. What exciting things might we expect to see next? What drives Google’s innovation in specialized AI hardware?

Compute

Author:

Sabastian Mugazambi

Group Product Manager, AI Infrastructure
Google Cloud

Sabastian Mugazambi is a seasoned technology leader with a passion for artificial intelligence and machine learning. As a Group Product Manager for Cloud AI Infrastructure at Google, Sabastian plays a pivotal role in shaping the future of AI acceleration. His focus on Cloud TPUs, Google's custom-designed machine learning processors on GCP, has enabled him to lead the charge on groundbreaking advancements in Cloud AI Infra technology. Sabastian's leadership as lead product manager has been instrumental in the successful launch of several generations of Cloud TPUs, including the v5e, v5p, and Trillium TPU. These innovations have empowered researchers, developers, and businesses to tackle the world's most complex AI challenges, from LLMs to broader cutting-edge generative models. With over half a decade of experience at Google, Sabastian has honed his expertise in the design, development, and deployment of AI infrastructure, and his deep understanding of the evolving AI landscape and commitment to delivering exceptional user experiences have made him a driving force in democratizing AI accelerators and making their power accessible to all through Google Cloud Platform. Previously, he founded and led a Natural Language Processing start-up that was acquired by a larger tech company and consulted on AI/ML programs for large tech companies. 

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Sabastian Mugazambi

Group Product Manager, AI Infrastructure
Google Cloud

Sabastian Mugazambi is a seasoned technology leader with a passion for artificial intelligence and machine learning. As a Group Product Manager for Cloud AI Infrastructure at Google, Sabastian plays a pivotal role in shaping the future of AI acceleration. His focus on Cloud TPUs, Google's custom-designed machine learning processors on GCP, has enabled him to lead the charge on groundbreaking advancements in Cloud AI Infra technology. Sabastian's leadership as lead product manager has been instrumental in the successful launch of several generations of Cloud TPUs, including the v5e, v5p, and Trillium TPU. These innovations have empowered researchers, developers, and businesses to tackle the world's most complex AI challenges, from LLMs to broader cutting-edge generative models. With over half a decade of experience at Google, Sabastian has honed his expertise in the design, development, and deployment of AI infrastructure, and his deep understanding of the evolving AI landscape and commitment to delivering exceptional user experiences have made him a driving force in democratizing AI accelerators and making their power accessible to all through Google Cloud Platform. Previously, he founded and led a Natural Language Processing start-up that was acquired by a larger tech company and consulted on AI/ML programs for large tech companies. 

Panelists

Author:

Rohit Kinra

SVP & GM, Hyperscale
Iron Mountain

Rohit joined Iron Mountain in 2019 to establish and build out the Account Management function for our North American data center business. His current role is SVP & GM, Hyperscale, for Iron Mountain’s Data Center Business Unit. Rohit is responsible for IMDC’s global hyperscale business, including all commercial activities: sales, delivery, and account management, strategic direction for this business, operational oversight, and financial management in order to maximize customer satisfaction, deepen executive-level relationships, and develop and own our growth strategy.

 

Rohit has held previous roles within Iron Mountain, including VP & Global Head of Hyperscale Implementation & Account Management, where he was responsible for the successful onboarding and the overall customer experience for our hyperscale customers. Prior to that, he was VP, Sales & Customer Success, North America, where he was responsible for our commercial activities for retail & enterprise customers, including new logo acquisition, growth within existing accounts, customer satisfaction, and renewals of existing customers. Prior to that, he was VP, Account Management & Customer Success, North America, where he was responsible for the overall customer relationships for our enterprise and retail customers, including customer satisfaction and renewals of existing customers. Prior to Iron Mountain, Rohit held senior level positions with Verisign at their Security Services business unit and America Online/Time Warner.

 

Rohit represents Iron Mountain on the boards of the Data Center Coalition and Clean Energy Buyers Association. Rohit is also a board member of the Little Folks School in Washington, DC.

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Rohit Kinra

SVP & GM, Hyperscale
Iron Mountain

Rohit joined Iron Mountain in 2019 to establish and build out the Account Management function for our North American data center business. His current role is SVP & GM, Hyperscale, for Iron Mountain’s Data Center Business Unit. Rohit is responsible for IMDC’s global hyperscale business, including all commercial activities: sales, delivery, and account management, strategic direction for this business, operational oversight, and financial management in order to maximize customer satisfaction, deepen executive-level relationships, and develop and own our growth strategy.

 

Rohit has held previous roles within Iron Mountain, including VP & Global Head of Hyperscale Implementation & Account Management, where he was responsible for the successful onboarding and the overall customer experience for our hyperscale customers. Prior to that, he was VP, Sales & Customer Success, North America, where he was responsible for our commercial activities for retail & enterprise customers, including new logo acquisition, growth within existing accounts, customer satisfaction, and renewals of existing customers. Prior to that, he was VP, Account Management & Customer Success, North America, where he was responsible for the overall customer relationships for our enterprise and retail customers, including customer satisfaction and renewals of existing customers. Prior to Iron Mountain, Rohit held senior level positions with Verisign at their Security Services business unit and America Online/Time Warner.

 

Rohit represents Iron Mountain on the boards of the Data Center Coalition and Clean Energy Buyers Association. Rohit is also a board member of the Little Folks School in Washington, DC.

Author:

Chris Crosby

CEO
Compass Datacenters

After years of working at the intersection of tech and real estate development, Chris Crosby set out in 2011 to take a new approach to data center development. His vision was to focus on greenfield projects and deliver customizable, scalable, sustainable, and low-cost data centers in an expedited time frame.

A testament to Chris’ bold vision and a solid culture centered around four core convictions from which the company has never wavered, Compass has grown at a remarkable rate. From completing its first 1.2 MW data center in 2012 to serving the campus-level hyperscale market with developments underway across the globe less than a decade later, Compass’s success is the result of Chris’ vision, a strong foundation, and a talented team of innovative thinkers.    

In 2023, Compass was recognized as one of Inc. Magazine’s 5000 fastest-growing companies. In the same year, Chris was named EY’s southwest area Entrepreneur of The Year®. Compass continues to drive industry-leading sustainability practices under Chris’ leadership, creating a lasting impact on the data center industry. 

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Chris Crosby

CEO
Compass Datacenters

After years of working at the intersection of tech and real estate development, Chris Crosby set out in 2011 to take a new approach to data center development. His vision was to focus on greenfield projects and deliver customizable, scalable, sustainable, and low-cost data centers in an expedited time frame.

A testament to Chris’ bold vision and a solid culture centered around four core convictions from which the company has never wavered, Compass has grown at a remarkable rate. From completing its first 1.2 MW data center in 2012 to serving the campus-level hyperscale market with developments underway across the globe less than a decade later, Compass’s success is the result of Chris’ vision, a strong foundation, and a talented team of innovative thinkers.    

In 2023, Compass was recognized as one of Inc. Magazine’s 5000 fastest-growing companies. In the same year, Chris was named EY’s southwest area Entrepreneur of The Year®. Compass continues to drive industry-leading sustainability practices under Chris’ leadership, creating a lasting impact on the data center industry. 

Author:

Laura Ortman

CEO
Cologix

Laura was appointed Chief Executive Officer of Cologix in 2022 after serving as the company’s President and Chief Revenue Officer since 2018. Laura has over 25 years of experience in cloud and technology global leadership focused on GTM strategy, revenue growth, global customer success, sales and account management, and revenue and client relationship management.  Laura was EVP and Chief Customer Officer at Equinix, and prior she spent nine years at VMware, overseeing the Cloud Services business as co-General Manager and Vice President. Laura held global IT and technical support teams for Jeppesen, a Boeing Company, and served various technical and global leadership positions at Lockheed Martin.  Laura is also on the board of Digital Edge DC. Laura holds an MBA in Information Systems from Regis University and a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration (BSBA) in Marketing from the University of Alabama in Huntsville, where she played collegiate tennis.

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Laura Ortman

CEO
Cologix

Laura was appointed Chief Executive Officer of Cologix in 2022 after serving as the company’s President and Chief Revenue Officer since 2018. Laura has over 25 years of experience in cloud and technology global leadership focused on GTM strategy, revenue growth, global customer success, sales and account management, and revenue and client relationship management.  Laura was EVP and Chief Customer Officer at Equinix, and prior she spent nine years at VMware, overseeing the Cloud Services business as co-General Manager and Vice President. Laura held global IT and technical support teams for Jeppesen, a Boeing Company, and served various technical and global leadership positions at Lockheed Martin.  Laura is also on the board of Digital Edge DC. Laura holds an MBA in Information Systems from Regis University and a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration (BSBA) in Marketing from the University of Alabama in Huntsville, where she played collegiate tennis.

Moderator

Author:

Steven Carlini

Chief AI Advocate
Schneider Electric
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Steven Carlini

Chief AI Advocate
Schneider Electric

The semiconductor industry is experiencing unprecedented growth, and this growth comes with significant challenges—more design starts, rising design complexities, shorter time-to-market, and a shrinking talent pool. To address these challenges, semiconductor companies are turning to AI-powered EDA solutions. While mainstream AI & GenAI technologies have seen rapid consumer adoption, adapting these AI technologies for EDA use cases is not straightforward due to stringent quality requirements for semiconductor design. 

Ideally, EDA AI solutions that provide productivity boosts to chip designers and engineers should (a) seamlessly analyze design and verification data, (b) optimize complex processes, and (c) generate better designs. Across these functional areas, we will discuss illustrative ML, GenAI, and Agentic approaches. Additionally, we will also discuss the challenges associated with AI adoption, including data availability, model interpretability, and computational demands. 

Further, we will discuss the grand vision of having a purpose-built centralized EDA AI platform. Such a platform framework can be very powerful by combining sophisticated foundational models or even IC domain-specific foundational models with a multimodal data lake to bring GenAI capabilities to push the boundaries of semiconductor innovation, paving the way for more efficient, scalable, and intelligent design processes.

Join us to explore the capabilities of EDA AI and see what the future holds!

Author:

Ankur Gupta

Senior Vice President and General Manager
Siemens EDA

Ankur Gupta is Senior Vice President and General Manager of Digital Design Creation at Siemens EDA. This includes Test, Embedded Analytics, Digital IC design, Power Optimization, and Power Integrity Analysis. Formerly he was head of Product Management and Applications at Ansys, Semiconductor and Head of Applications Engineering for Digital Implementation & Signoff at Cadence Design Systems.

Ankur has 20+ years of experience in EDA, working on some of the industry’s most innovative Test, Digital Design, Implementation and Signoff products. He holds a Master’s Degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering, from Iowa State University.

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Ankur Gupta

Senior Vice President and General Manager
Siemens EDA

Ankur Gupta is Senior Vice President and General Manager of Digital Design Creation at Siemens EDA. This includes Test, Embedded Analytics, Digital IC design, Power Optimization, and Power Integrity Analysis. Formerly he was head of Product Management and Applications at Ansys, Semiconductor and Head of Applications Engineering for Digital Implementation & Signoff at Cadence Design Systems.

Ankur has 20+ years of experience in EDA, working on some of the industry’s most innovative Test, Digital Design, Implementation and Signoff products. He holds a Master’s Degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering, from Iowa State University.

AI is only as good as the foundation upon which it is built. Unstable infrastructure can turn even the most brilliant algorithms into expensive experiments that fail when you need them most. With proven security, massive scale, and unmatched reliability, AWS was built for the needs of tomorrow's most demanding workloads. We'll dive into the high-performance networking, innovative silicon design, and differentiated services that enable customers to push the boundaries of what's possible. Because when it comes to AI, this isn't just infrastructure—it's the foundation that powers the future.

Author:

Barry Cooks

VP of SageMaker AI
AWS

 

Barry Cooks is a global enterprise technology veteran with 25 years of experience leading teams in cloud computing, hardware design, application microservices, artificial intelligence, and more. As Vice President of Technology at Amazon, he is responsible for compute abstractions (containers, serverless, VMware, micro-VMs), quantum experimentation, high performance computing, and AI training. He oversees key AWS services including AWS Lambda, Amazon Elastic Container Service, Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service, and Amazon SageMaker. Barry also leads responsible AI initiatives across AWS, promoting the safe and ethical development of AI as a force for good. Prior to joining Amazon in 2022, Barry served as CTO at DigitalOcean, where he guided the organization through its successful IPO. His career also includes leadership roles at VMware and Sun Microsystems. Barry holds a BS in Computer Science from Purdue University and an MS in Computer Science from the University of Oregon.

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Barry Cooks

VP of SageMaker AI
AWS

 

Barry Cooks is a global enterprise technology veteran with 25 years of experience leading teams in cloud computing, hardware design, application microservices, artificial intelligence, and more. As Vice President of Technology at Amazon, he is responsible for compute abstractions (containers, serverless, VMware, micro-VMs), quantum experimentation, high performance computing, and AI training. He oversees key AWS services including AWS Lambda, Amazon Elastic Container Service, Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service, and Amazon SageMaker. Barry also leads responsible AI initiatives across AWS, promoting the safe and ethical development of AI as a force for good. Prior to joining Amazon in 2022, Barry served as CTO at DigitalOcean, where he guided the organization through its successful IPO. His career also includes leadership roles at VMware and Sun Microsystems. Barry holds a BS in Computer Science from Purdue University and an MS in Computer Science from the University of Oregon.

Author:

Yee Jiun Song

VP, Engineering
Meta

Yee Jiun Song serves as Vice President of Engineering at Meta, leading the Infrastructure Foundation organization. In this role, he oversees the strategy and development of Meta's AI, compute, and storage hardware platforms, custom silicon, supply chain operations, and the management of global infrastructure capacity.  

Yee Jiun's tenure at Meta started in 2010 when he joined the company as a Research Scientist with a focus on improving system reliability and fault tolerance. He later became Vice President of Engineering for the Core Systems organization, where he played a key role in developing the software systems necessary for Meta's services to scale reliably to millions of servers.


Yee Jiun is committed to research and innovation and has published in various academic conferences, including SOSP, OSDI, and ISCA.

Yee Jiun holds a B.S. in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and a B.A. in Economics from the University of California, Berkeley, an M.S. in Computer Science from Stanford University, and a Ph.D. in Computer Science from Cornell University.

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Yee Jiun Song

VP, Engineering
Meta

Yee Jiun Song serves as Vice President of Engineering at Meta, leading the Infrastructure Foundation organization. In this role, he oversees the strategy and development of Meta's AI, compute, and storage hardware platforms, custom silicon, supply chain operations, and the management of global infrastructure capacity.  

Yee Jiun's tenure at Meta started in 2010 when he joined the company as a Research Scientist with a focus on improving system reliability and fault tolerance. He later became Vice President of Engineering for the Core Systems organization, where he played a key role in developing the software systems necessary for Meta's services to scale reliably to millions of servers.


Yee Jiun is committed to research and innovation and has published in various academic conferences, including SOSP, OSDI, and ISCA.

Yee Jiun holds a B.S. in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and a B.A. in Economics from the University of California, Berkeley, an M.S. in Computer Science from Stanford University, and a Ph.D. in Computer Science from Cornell University.