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As the foundations of AI infrastructure are laid, the costs of development and deployment are ramping up. What might be the cost of AGI, and how will it be funded? This panel will examine how the next 5 years of innovation might be funded, and what is needed at the supply chain and infrastructure level to maintain momentum.

Author:

Jon Korngold

Global Head of Technology Investing & Growth
Blackstone

Jon Korngold is the Global Co-Head of Technology Investing and Head of Blackstone Growth (BXG), which is focused on providing capital to companies seeking to manage the execution risks associated with high-growth environments. Jon is a member of both the BXG and Tactical Opportunities Investment Committees.

Prior to joining Blackstone in 2019, Jon was a member of General Atlantic’s Management and Investment Committees, Chairman of the firm’s Portfolio Committee, and led the firm’s Global Financial Services and Healthcare sectors. Jon also previously worked at Goldman Sachs in the Principal Investment Area and in the Mergers & Acquisitions groups in London and New York, respectively. Jon has spent extensive time in China, where he studied Mandarin Chinese at Peking University and did pro bono work for the U.S. Embassy’s Foreign Commercial Service in Beijing.

Jon is active with Harvard University, where he is a member of the Harvard College Fund’s Executive Committee and where he Co-Chairs fundraising for his College class. In addition, he is a member of The Council on Foreign Relations, has been an Adjunct Professor at Columbia Business School, a member of the Rockefeller University Council, a member of the New York Weill Cornell Council, a member of the Young Presidents Organization (YPO), a Young Global Leader of the World Economic Forum, a Commissioned Kentucky Colonel, and a member of the American Museum of Natural History’s Advisory Council. Jon has also served as a Trustee of the Cleveland Clinic, of The Dalton School, of The Central Park Conservancy and of the 92nd Street Y, among other institutions.

Jon has also been recognized for his efforts in the financial services sector, including having been ranked #1 in Institutional Investor’s list of global Financial Technology dealmakers on multiple occasions.

He received an AB in Economics from Harvard College, graduating with Honors, and earned his MBA from Harvard Business School.

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Jon Korngold

Global Head of Technology Investing & Growth
Blackstone

Jon Korngold is the Global Co-Head of Technology Investing and Head of Blackstone Growth (BXG), which is focused on providing capital to companies seeking to manage the execution risks associated with high-growth environments. Jon is a member of both the BXG and Tactical Opportunities Investment Committees.

Prior to joining Blackstone in 2019, Jon was a member of General Atlantic’s Management and Investment Committees, Chairman of the firm’s Portfolio Committee, and led the firm’s Global Financial Services and Healthcare sectors. Jon also previously worked at Goldman Sachs in the Principal Investment Area and in the Mergers & Acquisitions groups in London and New York, respectively. Jon has spent extensive time in China, where he studied Mandarin Chinese at Peking University and did pro bono work for the U.S. Embassy’s Foreign Commercial Service in Beijing.

Jon is active with Harvard University, where he is a member of the Harvard College Fund’s Executive Committee and where he Co-Chairs fundraising for his College class. In addition, he is a member of The Council on Foreign Relations, has been an Adjunct Professor at Columbia Business School, a member of the Rockefeller University Council, a member of the New York Weill Cornell Council, a member of the Young Presidents Organization (YPO), a Young Global Leader of the World Economic Forum, a Commissioned Kentucky Colonel, and a member of the American Museum of Natural History’s Advisory Council. Jon has also served as a Trustee of the Cleveland Clinic, of The Dalton School, of The Central Park Conservancy and of the 92nd Street Y, among other institutions.

Jon has also been recognized for his efforts in the financial services sector, including having been ranked #1 in Institutional Investor’s list of global Financial Technology dealmakers on multiple occasions.

He received an AB in Economics from Harvard College, graduating with Honors, and earned his MBA from Harvard Business School.

As the foundations of AI infrastructure are laid, the costs of development and deployment are ramping up. What might be the cost of AGI, and how will it be funded? This panel will examine how the next 5 years of innovation might be funded, and what is needed at the supply chain and infrastructure level to maintain momentum.

Author:

Jon Korngold

Global Head of Technology Investing & Growth
Blackstone

Jon Korngold is the Global Co-Head of Technology Investing and Head of Blackstone Growth (BXG), which is focused on providing capital to companies seeking to manage the execution risks associated with high-growth environments. Jon is a member of both the BXG and Tactical Opportunities Investment Committees.

Prior to joining Blackstone in 2019, Jon was a member of General Atlantic’s Management and Investment Committees, Chairman of the firm’s Portfolio Committee, and led the firm’s Global Financial Services and Healthcare sectors. Jon also previously worked at Goldman Sachs in the Principal Investment Area and in the Mergers & Acquisitions groups in London and New York, respectively. Jon has spent extensive time in China, where he studied Mandarin Chinese at Peking University and did pro bono work for the U.S. Embassy’s Foreign Commercial Service in Beijing.

Jon is active with Harvard University, where he is a member of the Harvard College Fund’s Executive Committee and where he Co-Chairs fundraising for his College class. In addition, he is a member of The Council on Foreign Relations, has been an Adjunct Professor at Columbia Business School, a member of the Rockefeller University Council, a member of the New York Weill Cornell Council, a member of the Young Presidents Organization (YPO), a Young Global Leader of the World Economic Forum, a Commissioned Kentucky Colonel, and a member of the American Museum of Natural History’s Advisory Council. Jon has also served as a Trustee of the Cleveland Clinic, of The Dalton School, of The Central Park Conservancy and of the 92nd Street Y, among other institutions.

Jon has also been recognized for his efforts in the financial services sector, including having been ranked #1 in Institutional Investor’s list of global Financial Technology dealmakers on multiple occasions.

He received an AB in Economics from Harvard College, graduating with Honors, and earned his MBA from Harvard Business School.

... read more

Jon Korngold

Global Head of Technology Investing & Growth
Blackstone

Jon Korngold is the Global Co-Head of Technology Investing and Head of Blackstone Growth (BXG), which is focused on providing capital to companies seeking to manage the execution risks associated with high-growth environments. Jon is a member of both the BXG and Tactical Opportunities Investment Committees.

Prior to joining Blackstone in 2019, Jon was a member of General Atlantic’s Management and Investment Committees, Chairman of the firm’s Portfolio Committee, and led the firm’s Global Financial Services and Healthcare sectors. Jon also previously worked at Goldman Sachs in the Principal Investment Area and in the Mergers & Acquisitions groups in London and New York, respectively. Jon has spent extensive time in China, where he studied Mandarin Chinese at Peking University and did pro bono work for the U.S. Embassy’s Foreign Commercial Service in Beijing.

Jon is active with Harvard University, where he is a member of the Harvard College Fund’s Executive Committee and where he Co-Chairs fundraising for his College class. In addition, he is a member of The Council on Foreign Relations, has been an Adjunct Professor at Columbia Business School, a member of the Rockefeller University Council, a member of the New York Weill Cornell Council, a member of the Young Presidents Organization (YPO), a Young Global Leader of the World Economic Forum, a Commissioned Kentucky Colonel, and a member of the American Museum of Natural History’s Advisory Council. Jon has also served as a Trustee of the Cleveland Clinic, of The Dalton School, of The Central Park Conservancy and of the 92nd Street Y, among other institutions.

Jon has also been recognized for his efforts in the financial services sector, including having been ranked #1 in Institutional Investor’s list of global Financial Technology dealmakers on multiple occasions.

He received an AB in Economics from Harvard College, graduating with Honors, and earned his MBA from Harvard Business School.

Scaling AI to enterprise-scale and beyond is a great feat of technical and organizational engineering. This panel will look at how to make deploying AI at scale easy for enterprises, which technical roadblocks exist, why they exist, and how companies are engineering around them.

 

Author:

Victoria Coleman

CEO
Acubed (Airbus)

Victoria joined in 2024 as CEO of Acubed and Airbus’ Head of Research & Technology for North America. She has 35 years of experience and expertise that extends across multiple domains, from cybersecurity and computer science to emerging platforms and software engineering. Prior to joining Acubed, she served as the Chief Scientist of the United States Air Force where she was the preeminent scientific advisor to top leadership, including the Secretary of the Air Force, Air Force Chief of Staff and Chief of Space Operations. Her responsibilities included assessing a wide range of scientific and technical issues crucial to the department's mission, as well as identifying and analyzing technical challenges to provide innovative solutions. Prior to her role as Chief Scientist, Dr. Coleman served as the 22nd Director of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and serves as a Visiting Professor in Electrical Engineering & Computer Sciences at UC Berkeley.

Beyond her government service, her career includes executive roles at pioneering organizations such as Atlas AI P.B.C, where she spearheaded the development of cutting-edge AI solutions for sustainable development. She was also the founding director of the System Design Laboratory at SRI International, leading research in trustworthy systems and cyber security. She also has held leadership positions at companies including Samsung, Hewlett-Packard, Nokia, Yahoo, and the Wikimedia Foundation.

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Victoria Coleman

CEO
Acubed (Airbus)

Victoria joined in 2024 as CEO of Acubed and Airbus’ Head of Research & Technology for North America. She has 35 years of experience and expertise that extends across multiple domains, from cybersecurity and computer science to emerging platforms and software engineering. Prior to joining Acubed, she served as the Chief Scientist of the United States Air Force where she was the preeminent scientific advisor to top leadership, including the Secretary of the Air Force, Air Force Chief of Staff and Chief of Space Operations. Her responsibilities included assessing a wide range of scientific and technical issues crucial to the department's mission, as well as identifying and analyzing technical challenges to provide innovative solutions. Prior to her role as Chief Scientist, Dr. Coleman served as the 22nd Director of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and serves as a Visiting Professor in Electrical Engineering & Computer Sciences at UC Berkeley.

Beyond her government service, her career includes executive roles at pioneering organizations such as Atlas AI P.B.C, where she spearheaded the development of cutting-edge AI solutions for sustainable development. She was also the founding director of the System Design Laboratory at SRI International, leading research in trustworthy systems and cyber security. She also has held leadership positions at companies including Samsung, Hewlett-Packard, Nokia, Yahoo, and the Wikimedia Foundation.

Author:

Ric Lewis

SVP, Infrastructure
IBM

Ric Lewis is Senior Vice President of Infrastructure for IBM and has global responsibility for the company’s servers, storage, associated software, and infrastructure support and services. He oversees IBM’s cloud business and also leads the IBM-wide mission for IBM Supply Chain.

Prior to joining IBM, Ric worked for 32 years at Hewlett Packard and Hewlett Packard Enterprise where he held numerous leadership roles focused on business and product innovation. Most recently, Ric was the Senior Vice President and General Manager of the Software Defined and Cloud Group, where his team incubated the software technology and strategy to enable as-a-service delivery of HPE’s entire portfolio. Ric’s groups created the industry-wide composable infrastructure product category and led it with an entirely new HW/SW design known as HPE Synergy that became the fastest new product/business in HP/HPE’s history to reach a billion dollars of revenue. 

Ric led businesses and R&D organizations delivering many innovative, successful products and upgrades for HP/HPE including HPE Simplivity hyperconverged systems, HP Converged Systems, HP Bladesystem, HP OneView, Superdome 2, Superdome X, NonStop systems, Integrity servers, and the HP-UX and OpenVMS operating environments. 

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Ric Lewis

SVP, Infrastructure
IBM

Ric Lewis is Senior Vice President of Infrastructure for IBM and has global responsibility for the company’s servers, storage, associated software, and infrastructure support and services. He oversees IBM’s cloud business and also leads the IBM-wide mission for IBM Supply Chain.

Prior to joining IBM, Ric worked for 32 years at Hewlett Packard and Hewlett Packard Enterprise where he held numerous leadership roles focused on business and product innovation. Most recently, Ric was the Senior Vice President and General Manager of the Software Defined and Cloud Group, where his team incubated the software technology and strategy to enable as-a-service delivery of HPE’s entire portfolio. Ric’s groups created the industry-wide composable infrastructure product category and led it with an entirely new HW/SW design known as HPE Synergy that became the fastest new product/business in HP/HPE’s history to reach a billion dollars of revenue. 

Ric led businesses and R&D organizations delivering many innovative, successful products and upgrades for HP/HPE including HPE Simplivity hyperconverged systems, HP Converged Systems, HP Bladesystem, HP OneView, Superdome 2, Superdome X, NonStop systems, Integrity servers, and the HP-UX and OpenVMS operating environments. 

Author:

Chris Lattner

Co-Founder & CEO
Modular

Chris Lattner is Co-Founder & CEO of Modular, and is a distinguished leader who founded and scaled critical infrastructure including LLVM, Clang, MLIR, Cloud TPUs and the Swift programming language. Chris built AI and core systems at multiple world leading technology companies including Apple, Google, SiFive and Tesla.

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Chris Lattner

Co-Founder & CEO
Modular

Chris Lattner is Co-Founder & CEO of Modular, and is a distinguished leader who founded and scaled critical infrastructure including LLVM, Clang, MLIR, Cloud TPUs and the Swift programming language. Chris built AI and core systems at multiple world leading technology companies including Apple, Google, SiFive and Tesla.

Author:

Janet George

EVP, AI
Mastercard

Mastercard recently announced Janet George as executive vice president of artificial intelligence. George, who will report to the company’s chief AI and data officer, will focus on enhancing, protecting and personalizing payments through cutting-edge AI technology. 

“The opportunity to leverage AI and data-driven insights to drive innovation and create value for Mastercard’s customers is incredibly exciting,” said Greg Ulrich, Mastercard’s chief AI and data officer. “Janet’s leadership and expertise, combined with her commitment to innovation, trust and responsibility, position her well in this exciting new role.”

George will lead Mastercard’s AI Center of Excellence focused on the company’s most critical AI and data science efforts. George will also play a critical role in helping to shape the technology, tooling and infrastructure to support Mastercard’s data scientists and AI talent. 

“It's clear that AI and data are not just tools – they are foundations of our future,” George said. “I look forward to collaborating with this talented team to push the boundaries of what's possible and to contribute to Mastercard's mission of connecting and powering the digital economy.” 

George previously held positions at Intel and Oracle. 

Mastercard has harnessed AI for decades to secure its network and protect more than 159 billion transactions annually. Its AI and data analytics expertise enhances personalized experiences for merchants and financial institutions and helps banks detect fraudulent transactions.  

... read more

Janet George

EVP, AI
Mastercard

Mastercard recently announced Janet George as executive vice president of artificial intelligence. George, who will report to the company’s chief AI and data officer, will focus on enhancing, protecting and personalizing payments through cutting-edge AI technology. 

“The opportunity to leverage AI and data-driven insights to drive innovation and create value for Mastercard’s customers is incredibly exciting,” said Greg Ulrich, Mastercard’s chief AI and data officer. “Janet’s leadership and expertise, combined with her commitment to innovation, trust and responsibility, position her well in this exciting new role.”

George will lead Mastercard’s AI Center of Excellence focused on the company’s most critical AI and data science efforts. George will also play a critical role in helping to shape the technology, tooling and infrastructure to support Mastercard’s data scientists and AI talent. 

“It's clear that AI and data are not just tools – they are foundations of our future,” George said. “I look forward to collaborating with this talented team to push the boundaries of what's possible and to contribute to Mastercard's mission of connecting and powering the digital economy.” 

George previously held positions at Intel and Oracle. 

Mastercard has harnessed AI for decades to secure its network and protect more than 159 billion transactions annually. Its AI and data analytics expertise enhances personalized experiences for merchants and financial institutions and helps banks detect fraudulent transactions.  

Moderator

Author:

Sriram Viswanathan

Founding Managing Partner
Celesta

Sriram Viswanathan has more than 30 years of technology business operations and venture capital experience. Prior to Celesta, Sriram was the founder of IndusAge Partners, a cross border venture firm investing in innovative companies in the US-India Technology corridor. Sriram spent nearly 20 years at Intel Corporation in various senior management roles, including vice president of the Intel Architecture Group (IAG), vice president of Intel Capital and general manager of Intel’s Incubation and Innovation Group.

Sriram is an active Advisory Board member of the India Semiconductor Mission, an initiative led by the Indian Government under Prime Minister Modi, guiding the development of a robust semiconductor and display manufacturing ecosystem in India. He also serves on the boards of the Aravind Eye Foundation and the World Affairs Council/ Commonwealth Club of California.

Sriram holds an MBA from UCLA Anderson School of Business (1997) and degrees in physics, computer science, and automation from the American College and the Indian Institute of Science in India.

[email protected]

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Sriram Viswanathan

Founding Managing Partner
Celesta

Sriram Viswanathan has more than 30 years of technology business operations and venture capital experience. Prior to Celesta, Sriram was the founder of IndusAge Partners, a cross border venture firm investing in innovative companies in the US-India Technology corridor. Sriram spent nearly 20 years at Intel Corporation in various senior management roles, including vice president of the Intel Architecture Group (IAG), vice president of Intel Capital and general manager of Intel’s Incubation and Innovation Group.

Sriram is an active Advisory Board member of the India Semiconductor Mission, an initiative led by the Indian Government under Prime Minister Modi, guiding the development of a robust semiconductor and display manufacturing ecosystem in India. He also serves on the boards of the Aravind Eye Foundation and the World Affairs Council/ Commonwealth Club of California.

Sriram holds an MBA from UCLA Anderson School of Business (1997) and degrees in physics, computer science, and automation from the American College and the Indian Institute of Science in India.

[email protected]

 

Lana Gladstein

General Counsel
Seaport Therapeutics

Lana Gladstein currently works as a General Counsel for Seaport Therapeutics. She previously worked at APRINOIA Therapeutics as a Group General Counsel. Lana Gladstein attended Northeastern University School of Law.

Read full bio

Lana Gladstein

General Counsel
Seaport Therapeutics

Lana Gladstein

General Counsel
Seaport Therapeutics

Lana Gladstein currently works as a General Counsel for Seaport Therapeutics. She previously worked at APRINOIA Therapeutics as a Group General Counsel. Lana Gladstein attended Northeastern University School of Law.

If, as Sequoia’s David Cahn writes, AI has an ROI problem to the tune of $600B, then killer enterprise apps need to start emerging to justify further infrastructure capex. This panel will address where enterprise leaders see value, and where they currently need support from the technology ecosystem.

Author:

Berta Rodriguez-Hervas

Chief AI and Analytics Officer
Pfizer

Berta Rodriguez Hervas is the Chief AI and Analytics officer at Pfizer and serves as co-chair of Pfizer’s AI Council. Berta has an extensive background in AI, machine learning and analytics, with a track-record of quickly developing AI solutions and delivering them at scale in large global organizations. Until recently, Berta was Vice President of Artificial Intelligence, Algorithms and Machine Learning Operation at Stellantis, a global automotive company, designing and implementing the strategy for the next generation of autonomous vehicles. Prior to that, she held key program and product development roles at NVIDIA, Tesla, and Mercedes-Benz.

... read more

Berta Rodriguez-Hervas

Chief AI and Analytics Officer
Pfizer

Berta Rodriguez Hervas is the Chief AI and Analytics officer at Pfizer and serves as co-chair of Pfizer’s AI Council. Berta has an extensive background in AI, machine learning and analytics, with a track-record of quickly developing AI solutions and delivering them at scale in large global organizations. Until recently, Berta was Vice President of Artificial Intelligence, Algorithms and Machine Learning Operation at Stellantis, a global automotive company, designing and implementing the strategy for the next generation of autonomous vehicles. Prior to that, she held key program and product development roles at NVIDIA, Tesla, and Mercedes-Benz.

Author:

Sam Hamilton

SVP, Head of Data & AI
Visa

Sam Hamilton leads the Data, Analytics, ML, AI, and GenAI Platform teams, which delivers secure, high-quality and easy-to-use Visa core data assets as a service together with reliable and scalable platforms as services to enable Visa and its partners to rapidly and efficiently innovate data and AI-driven business products and services to lead the digital payment industry.

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Sam Hamilton

SVP, Head of Data & AI
Visa

Sam Hamilton leads the Data, Analytics, ML, AI, and GenAI Platform teams, which delivers secure, high-quality and easy-to-use Visa core data assets as a service together with reliable and scalable platforms as services to enable Visa and its partners to rapidly and efficiently innovate data and AI-driven business products and services to lead the digital payment industry.

Author:

Shez Partovi

Chief Innovation & Strategy Officer & Chief Business Leader, Enterprise Informatics
Philips
 

Shez is an experienced clinical professor, neuroradiologist, global executive and entrepreneur with a track record of leading large health systems, cloud transformation, and artificial intelligence and machine learning initiatives in the healthcare, life sciences and genomics industries.

Since 2021, Shez has led Philips’ global Innovation & Strategy organization. In collaboration with the operating businesses, he is responsible for creating enterprise-wide strategies to deliver people- and patient-centric innovation, at scale. Shez and his teams raise the bar of innovation across the company and provide world-class capabilities and platforms to enable innovations that improve people’s health and healthcare outcomes, as well as making care more accessible, convenient, and sustainable.  

Shez also leads the Enterprise Informatics business at Philips, established in 2023. Enterprise Informatics combines Philips software and hardware solutions to empower healthcare leaders and care providers with the actionable insights they need to make informed decisions, optimize workflows and operations, and deliver high-quality care to improve patient outcomes. Shez and his informatics teams advance the mission of Philips as a world leader and trusted partner in integrated diagnostics, scaling insights & analytics.

 

Shez joined Philips from Amazon Web Services (AWS), where he served as Worldwide Head of Business Development for Healthcare, Life Sciences and Medical Devices. In that role, he was responsible for the global AWS go-to-market strategy, charting the path for customer cloud transformation, and the adoption of artificial intelligence and machine learning. Prior to joining AWS in 2018, Shez spent 20 years at Dignity Health, the fifth largest health system in the U.S. He started his career in 1998 as a neuroradiologist at the Barrow Neurological Institute and was in clinical practice until 2013. In addition to his medical training at McGill University in Montreal, he has post-graduate qualifications in computer science. Shez has a passion for learning and teaching. He helped launch the Biomedical Informatics Department at Arizona State University and taught there as a clinical professor for three years.

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Shez Partovi

Chief Innovation & Strategy Officer & Chief Business Leader, Enterprise Informatics
Philips
 

Shez is an experienced clinical professor, neuroradiologist, global executive and entrepreneur with a track record of leading large health systems, cloud transformation, and artificial intelligence and machine learning initiatives in the healthcare, life sciences and genomics industries.

Since 2021, Shez has led Philips’ global Innovation & Strategy organization. In collaboration with the operating businesses, he is responsible for creating enterprise-wide strategies to deliver people- and patient-centric innovation, at scale. Shez and his teams raise the bar of innovation across the company and provide world-class capabilities and platforms to enable innovations that improve people’s health and healthcare outcomes, as well as making care more accessible, convenient, and sustainable.  

Shez also leads the Enterprise Informatics business at Philips, established in 2023. Enterprise Informatics combines Philips software and hardware solutions to empower healthcare leaders and care providers with the actionable insights they need to make informed decisions, optimize workflows and operations, and deliver high-quality care to improve patient outcomes. Shez and his informatics teams advance the mission of Philips as a world leader and trusted partner in integrated diagnostics, scaling insights & analytics.

 

Shez joined Philips from Amazon Web Services (AWS), where he served as Worldwide Head of Business Development for Healthcare, Life Sciences and Medical Devices. In that role, he was responsible for the global AWS go-to-market strategy, charting the path for customer cloud transformation, and the adoption of artificial intelligence and machine learning. Prior to joining AWS in 2018, Shez spent 20 years at Dignity Health, the fifth largest health system in the U.S. He started his career in 1998 as a neuroradiologist at the Barrow Neurological Institute and was in clinical practice until 2013. In addition to his medical training at McGill University in Montreal, he has post-graduate qualifications in computer science. Shez has a passion for learning and teaching. He helped launch the Biomedical Informatics Department at Arizona State University and taught there as a clinical professor for three years.

Author:

Andrew Feldman

Co-Founder & CEO
Cerebras Systems

Andrew Feldman is co-founder and CEO of Cerebras Systems. He is an entrepreneur dedicated to pushing boundaries in the compute space. Prior to Cerebras, he co-founded and was CEO of SeaMicro, a pioneer of energy-efficient, high-bandwidth microservers. SeaMicro was acquired by AMD in 2012 for $357M. Before SeaMicro, Andrew was the Vice President of Product Management, Marketing and BD at Force10 Networks which was later sold to Dell Computing for $800M. Prior to Force10 Networks, Andrew was the Vice President of Marketing and Corporate Development at RiverStone Networks from the company’s inception through IPO in 2001. Andrew holds a BA and an MBA from Stanford University.

 

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Andrew Feldman

Co-Founder & CEO
Cerebras Systems

Andrew Feldman is co-founder and CEO of Cerebras Systems. He is an entrepreneur dedicated to pushing boundaries in the compute space. Prior to Cerebras, he co-founded and was CEO of SeaMicro, a pioneer of energy-efficient, high-bandwidth microservers. SeaMicro was acquired by AMD in 2012 for $357M. Before SeaMicro, Andrew was the Vice President of Product Management, Marketing and BD at Force10 Networks which was later sold to Dell Computing for $800M. Prior to Force10 Networks, Andrew was the Vice President of Marketing and Corporate Development at RiverStone Networks from the company’s inception through IPO in 2001. Andrew holds a BA and an MBA from Stanford University.

 

Moderator

Author:

Pankaj Dugar

SVP & GM, North America
AI21 Labs

Pankaj is the Senior Vice President and General Manager of North America for AI21 Labs - a leader in generative AI and Large Language Models, with the mission to bring reliable Generative AI solutions to the enterprise.

Previously, he was the Vice President of Product and Data Partnerships at Databricks where he built over 100 successful partnerships from the ground up.

Prior to Databricks, he led the Google Cloud Platform team responsible for its largest, and most strategic cloud partnerships.

He has over two decades of experience holding leadership roles in sales and corporate strategy at large multinational technology and management consulting firms, including Oracle, Cisco and McKinsey.

Pankaj graduated from Dartmouth with a degree in CS and has an MBA from the Harvard Business School.

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Pankaj Dugar

SVP & GM, North America
AI21 Labs

Pankaj is the Senior Vice President and General Manager of North America for AI21 Labs - a leader in generative AI and Large Language Models, with the mission to bring reliable Generative AI solutions to the enterprise.

Previously, he was the Vice President of Product and Data Partnerships at Databricks where he built over 100 successful partnerships from the ground up.

Prior to Databricks, he led the Google Cloud Platform team responsible for its largest, and most strategic cloud partnerships.

He has over two decades of experience holding leadership roles in sales and corporate strategy at large multinational technology and management consulting firms, including Oracle, Cisco and McKinsey.

Pankaj graduated from Dartmouth with a degree in CS and has an MBA from the Harvard Business School.

Over the past two decades, Reddit users have built the largest repository of human-generated information online, capturing the breadth and depth of the human experience. And because of its organized topics, quality-voting system, and anonymous (read: authentic) nature, this goldmine of user-generated content has become a particularly valuable resource for AI companies in training their learning models. Hear firsthand from Co-founder/CEO Steve Huffman as he shares key insights from Reddit’s journey, exploring how the platform’s unique model fuels AI innovation, and what the future holds for this symbiotic relationship between Reddit and AI.

Author:

Steve Huffman

Co-Founder & CEO
Reddit

Steve Huffman is Co-Founder and CEO of Reddit, an online community of communities. Raised in northern Virginia, Huffman pursued his passion for programming from an early age and followed it through a computer science degree at the University of Virginia. He and his college roommate pitched their first start-up to Y Combinator in 2005, but their initial idea was rejected in favour of building Reddit. After selling the company in 2006, Huffman co-founded the travel company Hipmunk and served as Chief Technology Officer. Huffman returned to Reddit as CEO in 2015 where he has led the company through international expansion, sweeping updates to the platform’s Content Policy, and a full site redesign, while also growing Reddit’s users and communities. In addition to his leadership at Reddit, Huffman is a mentor at Hackbright Academy, a San Francisco-based coding school for women. In his free time, he enjoys skiing, dancing, and browsing r/WholesomeMemes.

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Steve Huffman

Co-Founder & CEO
Reddit

Steve Huffman is Co-Founder and CEO of Reddit, an online community of communities. Raised in northern Virginia, Huffman pursued his passion for programming from an early age and followed it through a computer science degree at the University of Virginia. He and his college roommate pitched their first start-up to Y Combinator in 2005, but their initial idea was rejected in favour of building Reddit. After selling the company in 2006, Huffman co-founded the travel company Hipmunk and served as Chief Technology Officer. Huffman returned to Reddit as CEO in 2015 where he has led the company through international expansion, sweeping updates to the platform’s Content Policy, and a full site redesign, while also growing Reddit’s users and communities. In addition to his leadership at Reddit, Huffman is a mentor at Hackbright Academy, a San Francisco-based coding school for women. In his free time, he enjoys skiing, dancing, and browsing r/WholesomeMemes.

As organizations move from generative through agentic systems and beyond, how must infrastructure evolve to meet the ever expanding requirements for AI development? On the road to AGI, is a paradigm shift on the horizon, or can we get there with just more of the same?

Author:

Andrew Ng

Managing General Partner
AI Fund

Andrew Ng is the Managing General Partner at AI Fund, Founder of DeepLearning.AI, Executive Chairman of LandingAI, and an Adjunct Professor at Stanford University.

As a pioneer in machine learning and online education, Dr. Ng has changed countless lives through his work in AI and has taught over 8 million people AI. He was the founding lead of the Google Brain team, which led Google’s drive to adopt modern AI, and the VP & Chief Scientist at Baidu.

He is also Chairman and  Co-founder of Coursera, a leading online education company. In 2023, he was named to the Time100 AI list of the most influential AI persons in the world. Dr. Ng now focuses his time primarily on providing AI training and on his entrepreneurial ventures, looking for the best ways to accelerate responsible AI adoption globally.

Dr. Ng has authored over 200 papers in AI and related fields, and holds a B.Sc. from CMU, M.Sc. from MIT, and Ph.D. from UC Berkeley.

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Andrew Ng

Managing General Partner
AI Fund

Andrew Ng is the Managing General Partner at AI Fund, Founder of DeepLearning.AI, Executive Chairman of LandingAI, and an Adjunct Professor at Stanford University.

As a pioneer in machine learning and online education, Dr. Ng has changed countless lives through his work in AI and has taught over 8 million people AI. He was the founding lead of the Google Brain team, which led Google’s drive to adopt modern AI, and the VP & Chief Scientist at Baidu.

He is also Chairman and  Co-founder of Coursera, a leading online education company. In 2023, he was named to the Time100 AI list of the most influential AI persons in the world. Dr. Ng now focuses his time primarily on providing AI training and on his entrepreneurial ventures, looking for the best ways to accelerate responsible AI adoption globally.

Dr. Ng has authored over 200 papers in AI and related fields, and holds a B.Sc. from CMU, M.Sc. from MIT, and Ph.D. from UC Berkeley.

Author:

Mark Papermaster

CTO & EVP
AMD

Mark Papermaster is Chief Technology Officer and Executive Vice President responsible for Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) technical direction and product development. He led the re-design of engineering processes at AMD and the development of the award-winning “Zen” high-performance x86 CPU family, high-performance GPUs and the company’s modular design approach, Infinity Architecture. He also oversees Information Technology (IT) that delivers AMD’s compute infrastructure and services.

His 40+ years of engineering experience includes significant leadership roles managing the development of a wide range of products, from microprocessors to mobile devices and high-performance servers. Before joining AMD in October 2011 as Chief Technology Officer and Senior Vice President, Papermaster was the leader of Cisco’s Silicon Engineering Group, Apple Senior Vice President of Devices Hardware Engineering for iPod and iPhone and held multiple IBM roles in technology development including blade server and the microprocessor technology in mainframe, server, and storage products.

In October 2024, he was appointed the Vice Chair of the US Department of Commerce Industrial Advisory Committee (IAC) for the CHIPS for America program. He is also an active member of several boards and committees, including the Global Semiconductor Alliance Board of Directors, IEEE Industry Advisory Board, The University of Texas at Austin Cockrell School of Engineering Advisory Board, The University of Texas President’s Austin Innovation Board, and Purdue University Semiconductor Degrees Leadership Board.

Papermaster received his bachelor’s degree from the University of Texas at Austin and master’s degree from the University of Vermont, both in Electrical Engineering.

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Mark Papermaster

CTO & EVP
AMD

Mark Papermaster is Chief Technology Officer and Executive Vice President responsible for Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) technical direction and product development. He led the re-design of engineering processes at AMD and the development of the award-winning “Zen” high-performance x86 CPU family, high-performance GPUs and the company’s modular design approach, Infinity Architecture. He also oversees Information Technology (IT) that delivers AMD’s compute infrastructure and services.

His 40+ years of engineering experience includes significant leadership roles managing the development of a wide range of products, from microprocessors to mobile devices and high-performance servers. Before joining AMD in October 2011 as Chief Technology Officer and Senior Vice President, Papermaster was the leader of Cisco’s Silicon Engineering Group, Apple Senior Vice President of Devices Hardware Engineering for iPod and iPhone and held multiple IBM roles in technology development including blade server and the microprocessor technology in mainframe, server, and storage products.

In October 2024, he was appointed the Vice Chair of the US Department of Commerce Industrial Advisory Committee (IAC) for the CHIPS for America program. He is also an active member of several boards and committees, including the Global Semiconductor Alliance Board of Directors, IEEE Industry Advisory Board, The University of Texas at Austin Cockrell School of Engineering Advisory Board, The University of Texas President’s Austin Innovation Board, and Purdue University Semiconductor Degrees Leadership Board.

Papermaster received his bachelor’s degree from the University of Texas at Austin and master’s degree from the University of Vermont, both in Electrical Engineering.

Author:

Fidelma Russo

CTO, EVP & GM, Hybrid Cloud
HPE

Fidelma Russo is the Executive Vice President and General Manager of Hewlett Packard Enterprise's Hybrid Cloud business unit, and the company's Chief Technology Officer. Fidelma's Hybrid Cloud team is tasked with solving some of IT's biggest challenges, including transforming business through the power of data, modernizing IT infrastructure with a true cloud experience, and dramatically simplifying operations across hybrid cloud IT estates - all as they help customers accelerate their adoption of AI.

As the leader of this global organization of over 5,500 employees, Fidelma is responsible for driving the strategic direction, development, and execution of HPE's GreenLake platform, storage, private cloud, and SaaS solutions, along with creating an innovation pipeline through the capabilities and services of the Office of the CTO. 

Fidelma joined Hewlett Packard Enterprise in September 2021 as Chief Technology Officer, where she led the creation, development, and delivery of HPE's GreenLake platform, a central offering for all of HPE's edge-to-cloud solutions and cloud services.

Based in Houston, Texas, Fidelma has more than 30 years of technology leadership spanning machine learning and analytics, global IT business services, cloud services, servers, storage, networking, backup, and infrastructure.

Prior to joining Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Fidelma was Senior Vice President and General Manager of the Cloud Services business unit at VMware. She has held notable senior leadership positions including Chief Technology Officer and Executive Vice President at Iron Mountain, Senior Vice President and General Manager at EMC, Vice President of Adaptive Infrastructure at Hewlett-Packard, and Senior Vice President of Network, Storage, and Software at Sun Microsystems.

Fidelma was appointed to Equinix's Board of Directors and audit committee in June 2022, and she also sits on the HP International Bank's Board of Directors. In July 2023, Fidelma was recognized in CRN's Top 100 Executive awards and Top 25 IT Innovators of 2023.

Fidelma holds a Bachelor of Engineering degree in electrical engineering from University College Cork, a master's in computer science from Boston University, and completed the Internet of Things Executive Education program at MIT's Sloan School of Management.

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Fidelma Russo

CTO, EVP & GM, Hybrid Cloud
HPE

Fidelma Russo is the Executive Vice President and General Manager of Hewlett Packard Enterprise's Hybrid Cloud business unit, and the company's Chief Technology Officer. Fidelma's Hybrid Cloud team is tasked with solving some of IT's biggest challenges, including transforming business through the power of data, modernizing IT infrastructure with a true cloud experience, and dramatically simplifying operations across hybrid cloud IT estates - all as they help customers accelerate their adoption of AI.

As the leader of this global organization of over 5,500 employees, Fidelma is responsible for driving the strategic direction, development, and execution of HPE's GreenLake platform, storage, private cloud, and SaaS solutions, along with creating an innovation pipeline through the capabilities and services of the Office of the CTO. 

Fidelma joined Hewlett Packard Enterprise in September 2021 as Chief Technology Officer, where she led the creation, development, and delivery of HPE's GreenLake platform, a central offering for all of HPE's edge-to-cloud solutions and cloud services.

Based in Houston, Texas, Fidelma has more than 30 years of technology leadership spanning machine learning and analytics, global IT business services, cloud services, servers, storage, networking, backup, and infrastructure.

Prior to joining Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Fidelma was Senior Vice President and General Manager of the Cloud Services business unit at VMware. She has held notable senior leadership positions including Chief Technology Officer and Executive Vice President at Iron Mountain, Senior Vice President and General Manager at EMC, Vice President of Adaptive Infrastructure at Hewlett-Packard, and Senior Vice President of Network, Storage, and Software at Sun Microsystems.

Fidelma was appointed to Equinix's Board of Directors and audit committee in June 2022, and she also sits on the HP International Bank's Board of Directors. In July 2023, Fidelma was recognized in CRN's Top 100 Executive awards and Top 25 IT Innovators of 2023.

Fidelma holds a Bachelor of Engineering degree in electrical engineering from University College Cork, a master's in computer science from Boston University, and completed the Internet of Things Executive Education program at MIT's Sloan School of Management.

Moderator

Author:

Sean White

CEO
Inflection AI

Sean White is the CEO of Inflection AI, a pioneer in human-centered artificial intelligence. With a career spanning decades in tech innovation, Sean has been at the forefront of computer vision and AI technology. His experience includes key roles at Mozilla as Chief R&D Officer, work on augmented reality at the Smithsonian and Columbia University, and contributions to early web-based email systems. Sean’s passion for human-computer interaction and collaborative intelligence drives Inflection AI’s mission to create AI systems that enhance human capabilities and improve organizations.

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Sean White

CEO
Inflection AI

Sean White is the CEO of Inflection AI, a pioneer in human-centered artificial intelligence. With a career spanning decades in tech innovation, Sean has been at the forefront of computer vision and AI technology. His experience includes key roles at Mozilla as Chief R&D Officer, work on augmented reality at the Smithsonian and Columbia University, and contributions to early web-based email systems. Sean’s passion for human-computer interaction and collaborative intelligence drives Inflection AI’s mission to create AI systems that enhance human capabilities and improve organizations.