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Systems
Hardware
Infrastructure
Moderator

Author:

Steven Woo

Fellow and Distinguished Inventor
Rambus

I was drawn to Rambus to focus on cutting edge computing technologies. Throughout my 15+ year career, I’ve helped invent, create and develop means of driving and extending performance in both hardware and software solutions. At Rambus, we are solving challenges that are completely new to the industry and occur as a response to deployments that are highly sophisticated and advanced.

As an inventor, I find myself approaching a challenge like a room filled with 100,000 pieces of a puzzle where it is my job to figure out how they all go together – without knowing what it is supposed to look like in the end. For me, the job of finishing the puzzle is as enjoyable as the actual process of coming up with a new, innovative solution.

For example, RDRAM®, our first mainstream memory architecture, implemented in hundreds of millions of consumer, computing and networking products from leading electronics companies including Cisco, Dell, Hitachi, HP, Intel, etc. We did a lot of novel things that required inventiveness – we pushed the envelope and created state of the art performance without making actual changes to the infrastructure.

I’m excited about the new opportunities as computing is becoming more and more pervasive in our everyday lives. With a world full of data, my job and my fellow inventors’ job will be to stay curious, maintain an inquisitive approach and create solutions that are technologically superior and that seamlessly intertwine with our daily lives.

After an inspiring work day at Rambus, I enjoy spending time with my family, being outdoors, swimming, and reading.

Education

  • Ph.D., Electrical Engineering, Stanford University
  • M.S. Electrical Engineering, Stanford University
  • Master of Engineering, Harvey Mudd College
  • B.S. Engineering, Harvey Mudd College

... read more

Steven Woo

Fellow and Distinguished Inventor
Rambus

I was drawn to Rambus to focus on cutting edge computing technologies. Throughout my 15+ year career, I’ve helped invent, create and develop means of driving and extending performance in both hardware and software solutions. At Rambus, we are solving challenges that are completely new to the industry and occur as a response to deployments that are highly sophisticated and advanced.

As an inventor, I find myself approaching a challenge like a room filled with 100,000 pieces of a puzzle where it is my job to figure out how they all go together – without knowing what it is supposed to look like in the end. For me, the job of finishing the puzzle is as enjoyable as the actual process of coming up with a new, innovative solution.

For example, RDRAM®, our first mainstream memory architecture, implemented in hundreds of millions of consumer, computing and networking products from leading electronics companies including Cisco, Dell, Hitachi, HP, Intel, etc. We did a lot of novel things that required inventiveness – we pushed the envelope and created state of the art performance without making actual changes to the infrastructure.

I’m excited about the new opportunities as computing is becoming more and more pervasive in our everyday lives. With a world full of data, my job and my fellow inventors’ job will be to stay curious, maintain an inquisitive approach and create solutions that are technologically superior and that seamlessly intertwine with our daily lives.

After an inspiring work day at Rambus, I enjoy spending time with my family, being outdoors, swimming, and reading.

Education

  • Ph.D., Electrical Engineering, Stanford University
  • M.S. Electrical Engineering, Stanford University
  • Master of Engineering, Harvey Mudd College
  • B.S. Engineering, Harvey Mudd College

Author:

Manoj Wadekar

AI Systems Technologist
Meta
... read more

Manoj Wadekar

AI Systems Technologist
Meta

Author:

Taeksang Song

CVP
Samsung Electronics

Taeksang is a Corporate VP at Samsung Electronics where he is leading a team dedicated to pioneering cutting-edge technologies including CXL memory expander, fabric attached memory solution and processing near memory to meet the evolving demands of next-generation data-centric AI architecture. He has almost 20 years' professional experience in memory and sub-system architecture, interconnect protocols, system-on-chip design and collaborating with CSPs to enable hetegeneous computing infrastructure.  Prior to joining Samsung Electronics, he worked at Rambus Inc., SK hynix and Micron Technology in lead architect roles for the emerging memory controllers and systems. 

Taeksang receives his Ph.D. degree from KAIST, South Korea, in 2006. Dr. Song has authored and co-authored over 20 technical papers and holds over 50 U.S. patents. 

 

 

... read more

Taeksang Song

CVP
Samsung Electronics

Taeksang is a Corporate VP at Samsung Electronics where he is leading a team dedicated to pioneering cutting-edge technologies including CXL memory expander, fabric attached memory solution and processing near memory to meet the evolving demands of next-generation data-centric AI architecture. He has almost 20 years' professional experience in memory and sub-system architecture, interconnect protocols, system-on-chip design and collaborating with CSPs to enable hetegeneous computing infrastructure.  Prior to joining Samsung Electronics, he worked at Rambus Inc., SK hynix and Micron Technology in lead architect roles for the emerging memory controllers and systems. 

Taeksang receives his Ph.D. degree from KAIST, South Korea, in 2006. Dr. Song has authored and co-authored over 20 technical papers and holds over 50 U.S. patents. 

 

 

Author:

Markus Flierl

CVP Intel Cloud Services
Intel, Corp

Markus joined Intel in early 2022 to lead Intel Cloud Services which includes Intel Tiber Developer Cloud (ITDC/ cloud.intel.com), Intel Tiber App-Level Optimization (formerly known as Granulate). Intel Tiber Developer Cloud provides a range of cloud services based on Intel latest pre-production and production hardware and software with focus on AI workloads. ITDC hosts large production workloads for companies such as seekr or Prediction Guard. Before joining Intel Markus built out NVIDIA’s GPU cloud infrastructure services leveraging cutting edge NVIDIA and open source technologies. Today it is the foundation for NVIDIA’s GeForce Now cloud gaming service which has become the leader in cloud gaming with over 25 million registered users globally as well as NVIDIA’s DGX cloud and edge computing workloads like NVIDIA Omniverse™. Prior to that Markus led product strategy and product development of private and public cloud infrastructure and storage software at Oracle Corporation and Sun Microsystems.

... read more

Markus Flierl

CVP Intel Cloud Services
Intel, Corp

Markus joined Intel in early 2022 to lead Intel Cloud Services which includes Intel Tiber Developer Cloud (ITDC/ cloud.intel.com), Intel Tiber App-Level Optimization (formerly known as Granulate). Intel Tiber Developer Cloud provides a range of cloud services based on Intel latest pre-production and production hardware and software with focus on AI workloads. ITDC hosts large production workloads for companies such as seekr or Prediction Guard. Before joining Intel Markus built out NVIDIA’s GPU cloud infrastructure services leveraging cutting edge NVIDIA and open source technologies. Today it is the foundation for NVIDIA’s GeForce Now cloud gaming service which has become the leader in cloud gaming with over 25 million registered users globally as well as NVIDIA’s DGX cloud and edge computing workloads like NVIDIA Omniverse™. Prior to that Markus led product strategy and product development of private and public cloud infrastructure and storage software at Oracle Corporation and Sun Microsystems.

Hardware
Infrastructure
Moderator

Author:

RK Anand

Co-Founder and CPO
RECOGNI

RK Anand is the Co-founder and Chief Product Officer (CPO) of Recogni, an artificial intelligence startup based in San Jose specializing in building multimodal GenAI inference systems for data centers.

At Recogni, RK spearheads the company’s product development and Go-To-Market strategies within the data center industry.

With an unwavering commitment to customer needs and value creation, RK and the Recogni team are striving to deliver the highest performing and most cost and energy efficient multi-modal GenAI systems to the market.

RK brings over 35 years of leadership experience in data center compute systems, networking, and silicon development. His distinguished career includes engineering roles at Sun Microsystems and serving as Executive Vice President and General Manager at Juniper Networks. As one of the earliest employees at Juniper, RK played a pivotal role in the company’s growth from a startup to generating billions of dollars in revenue.

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RK Anand

Co-Founder and CPO
RECOGNI

RK Anand is the Co-founder and Chief Product Officer (CPO) of Recogni, an artificial intelligence startup based in San Jose specializing in building multimodal GenAI inference systems for data centers.

At Recogni, RK spearheads the company’s product development and Go-To-Market strategies within the data center industry.

With an unwavering commitment to customer needs and value creation, RK and the Recogni team are striving to deliver the highest performing and most cost and energy efficient multi-modal GenAI systems to the market.

RK brings over 35 years of leadership experience in data center compute systems, networking, and silicon development. His distinguished career includes engineering roles at Sun Microsystems and serving as Executive Vice President and General Manager at Juniper Networks. As one of the earliest employees at Juniper, RK played a pivotal role in the company’s growth from a startup to generating billions of dollars in revenue.

Author:

Gaia Bellone

Chief Data Scientist
Prudential Financial

Gaia is a dynamic and accomplished leader in the field of Data Science and Artificial Intelligence. In her current role at Prudential Financial, she leads Global Data and AI Governance and serves as Chief Data Officer (CDO) for Emerging Markets.

Her contributions to Prudential Financial have been significant and impactful. As the former Chief Data Scientist at Prudential, she led the Data Science team in creating innovative solutions for Digital, Marketing, Sales, and Distribution, the AI/ML Platform team, and the GenAI Enterprise Program. Her leadership and strategic vision have been instrumental in driving business growth and enhancing operational efficiency.

Prior to her tenure at Prudential, she held prominent positions at Key Bank and JPMorgan Chase. At Key Bank, she served as the Head of Data Science for the Community Bank. Her leadership and expertise in data science were crucial in optimizing the bank's operations and improving customer experience. At JPMorgan Chase, she led the data science teams for Home Lending and Auto Finance. Her strategic insights and data-driven solutions significantly improved the business performance in these sectors, contributing to the overall success of the enterprise.

Throughout her career, she has consistently demonstrated her ability to leverage data and AI to drive business growth and improve operational efficiency. Her contributions to the businesses and the enterprise have been substantial and transformative.

... read more

Gaia Bellone

Chief Data Scientist
Prudential Financial

Gaia is a dynamic and accomplished leader in the field of Data Science and Artificial Intelligence. In her current role at Prudential Financial, she leads Global Data and AI Governance and serves as Chief Data Officer (CDO) for Emerging Markets.

Her contributions to Prudential Financial have been significant and impactful. As the former Chief Data Scientist at Prudential, she led the Data Science team in creating innovative solutions for Digital, Marketing, Sales, and Distribution, the AI/ML Platform team, and the GenAI Enterprise Program. Her leadership and strategic vision have been instrumental in driving business growth and enhancing operational efficiency.

Prior to her tenure at Prudential, she held prominent positions at Key Bank and JPMorgan Chase. At Key Bank, she served as the Head of Data Science for the Community Bank. Her leadership and expertise in data science were crucial in optimizing the bank's operations and improving customer experience. At JPMorgan Chase, she led the data science teams for Home Lending and Auto Finance. Her strategic insights and data-driven solutions significantly improved the business performance in these sectors, contributing to the overall success of the enterprise.

Throughout her career, she has consistently demonstrated her ability to leverage data and AI to drive business growth and improve operational efficiency. Her contributions to the businesses and the enterprise have been substantial and transformative.

Author:

Michael Stewart

Partner
M12
... read more

Michael Stewart

Partner
M12

Author:

Alex Pham

GM, Chief Architect, Head of Data Infrastructure and AI Platforms
Toyota North America
... read more

Alex Pham

GM, Chief Architect, Head of Data Infrastructure and AI Platforms
Toyota North America
Memory
Systems
Hardware
Infrastructure

Author:

Rochan Sankar

Co-Founder & CEO
Enfabrica

Rochan is Founder, President and CEO of Enfabrica. Prior to founding Enfabrica, he was Senior Director and leader of the Data Center Ethernet switch silicon business at Broadcom, where he defined and brought to market multiple generations of Tomahawk/Trident chips and helped build industry-wide ecosystems including 25G Ethernet and disaggregated whitebox networking.

Prior, he held roles in product management, chip architecture, and applications engineering across startup and public semiconductor companies. Rochan holds a B.A.Sc. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Toronto and an MBA from the Wharton School, and has 6 issued patents.

... read more

Rochan Sankar

Co-Founder & CEO
Enfabrica

Rochan is Founder, President and CEO of Enfabrica. Prior to founding Enfabrica, he was Senior Director and leader of the Data Center Ethernet switch silicon business at Broadcom, where he defined and brought to market multiple generations of Tomahawk/Trident chips and helped build industry-wide ecosystems including 25G Ethernet and disaggregated whitebox networking.

Prior, he held roles in product management, chip architecture, and applications engineering across startup and public semiconductor companies. Rochan holds a B.A.Sc. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Toronto and an MBA from the Wharton School, and has 6 issued patents.

Generative AI
Infrastructure
Hardware
Software

Author:

Phil Pokorny

Chief Technology Officer
Penguin Solutions

Phil Pokorny is the Chief Technology Officer (CTO) for SGH / Penguin Solutions. He brings a wealth of engineering experience and customer insight to the design, development, support, and vision for our technology solutions.

Phil joined Penguin in February of 2001 as an engineer, and steadily progressed through the organization, taking on more responsibility and influencing the direction of key technology and design decisions. Prior to joining Penguin, he spent 14 years in various engineering and system administration roles with Cummins, Inc. and Cummins Electronics. At Cummins, Phil participated in the development of internal network standards, deployed and managed a multisite network of multiprotocol routers, and supported a diverse mix of office and engineering workers with a variety of server and desktop operating systems.

He has contributed code to Open Source projects, including the Linux kernel, lm_sensors, and LCDproc.

Phil graduated from Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology with Bachelor of Science degrees in math and electrical engineering, with a second major in computer science. 

... read more

Phil Pokorny

Chief Technology Officer
Penguin Solutions

Phil Pokorny is the Chief Technology Officer (CTO) for SGH / Penguin Solutions. He brings a wealth of engineering experience and customer insight to the design, development, support, and vision for our technology solutions.

Phil joined Penguin in February of 2001 as an engineer, and steadily progressed through the organization, taking on more responsibility and influencing the direction of key technology and design decisions. Prior to joining Penguin, he spent 14 years in various engineering and system administration roles with Cummins, Inc. and Cummins Electronics. At Cummins, Phil participated in the development of internal network standards, deployed and managed a multisite network of multiprotocol routers, and supported a diverse mix of office and engineering workers with a variety of server and desktop operating systems.

He has contributed code to Open Source projects, including the Linux kernel, lm_sensors, and LCDproc.

Phil graduated from Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology with Bachelor of Science degrees in math and electrical engineering, with a second major in computer science. 

Systems
Hardware
Infrastructure

Author:

Matthew Burns

Technical Marketing Manager
Samtec

Matthew Burns develops go-to-market strategies for Samtec’s Silicon-to-Silicon solutions. Over the course of 20+ years, he has been a leader in design, applications engineering, technical sales and marketing in the telecommunications, medical and electronic components industries. Mr. Burns holds a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from Penn State University.

... read more

Matthew Burns

Technical Marketing Manager
Samtec

Matthew Burns develops go-to-market strategies for Samtec’s Silicon-to-Silicon solutions. Over the course of 20+ years, he has been a leader in design, applications engineering, technical sales and marketing in the telecommunications, medical and electronic components industries. Mr. Burns holds a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from Penn State University.

Generative AI
Infrastructure

Author:

Steven Brightfield

Chief Marketing Officer
BrainChip

Steven Brightfield has over 20 years of success defining and bringing to market new semiconductor products with companies such as Qualcomm, SiMA.ai. LSI Logic, Plessey and Zoran for mobile, AR/VR, wearable, edge ML, cable/sat set-top and digital camera chips. He has 10 years of experience launching programmable semiconductor IP cores for CPU/GPU/DSP/NPUs at LSI Logic,ARC, MIPS, Silicon Arts, Improv, and BOPS and licensing into end products that are ubiquitous today. Steven’s technical foundation in digital signal processing led to using (DSPs in innovative products that digitized the world of speech, audio, multimedia, graphics, camera and video processing, most recently applying AI/ML in these same domains. Steven recently joined the BrainChip leadership team to further drive BrainChip’s brand recognition, go-to-market strategy and customer acquisition as BrainChip enters a growth phase for their flagship Akida products. Steven has a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering from Purdue University. 

 

... read more

Steven Brightfield

Chief Marketing Officer
BrainChip

Steven Brightfield has over 20 years of success defining and bringing to market new semiconductor products with companies such as Qualcomm, SiMA.ai. LSI Logic, Plessey and Zoran for mobile, AR/VR, wearable, edge ML, cable/sat set-top and digital camera chips. He has 10 years of experience launching programmable semiconductor IP cores for CPU/GPU/DSP/NPUs at LSI Logic,ARC, MIPS, Silicon Arts, Improv, and BOPS and licensing into end products that are ubiquitous today. Steven’s technical foundation in digital signal processing led to using (DSPs in innovative products that digitized the world of speech, audio, multimedia, graphics, camera and video processing, most recently applying AI/ML in these same domains. Steven recently joined the BrainChip leadership team to further drive BrainChip’s brand recognition, go-to-market strategy and customer acquisition as BrainChip enters a growth phase for their flagship Akida products. Steven has a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering from Purdue University. 

 

Generative AI
Hardware
Infrastructure

Author:

Hyunsik Choi

Head of SW Platform
Furiosa AI
... read more

Hyunsik Choi

Head of SW Platform
Furiosa AI
Generative AI
Infrastructure

Author:

Arun Nandi

Senior Director and Head of Data & Analytics
Unilever

Arun is a visionary AI and Analytics expert recognized as one of the Top 100 Influential AI & Analytics leaders. He is the Head of Data & Analytics at Unilever today. With over 15 years of experience driving analytics-driven value in organizations, he has built AI practices from the ground up on several occasions. Arun advocates the adoption of AI to overcome enterprise-wide challenges and create growth. Beyond his professional achievements, Arun loves to travel, having explored over 40 countries and is passionate about adventure motorbiking.

... read more

Arun Nandi

Senior Director and Head of Data & Analytics
Unilever

Arun is a visionary AI and Analytics expert recognized as one of the Top 100 Influential AI & Analytics leaders. He is the Head of Data & Analytics at Unilever today. With over 15 years of experience driving analytics-driven value in organizations, he has built AI practices from the ground up on several occasions. Arun advocates the adoption of AI to overcome enterprise-wide challenges and create growth. Beyond his professional achievements, Arun loves to travel, having explored over 40 countries and is passionate about adventure motorbiking.

Mirko Prezioso, co-founder and CEO of Mentium Technologies, will present an overview of the company, including who they are, what they do, and their mission. The talk will highlight why Mentium developed a Hybrid architecture for Edge AI applications that demand the highest inference reliability and speed, specifically for Mission-Critical Edge AI applications. Mentium plans to deliver Early Access Development Kits in 2024, a milestone made possible with the support of the Synopsys Cloud platform and team.

Software
Generative AI
Hardware

Author:

Mirko Prezioso

CEO
Mentium Technologies

Mirko Prezioso has a M. Sc. in condensed matter physics from the University of Parma, Italy, where he also earned his PhD in advanced materials science and technology, in 2008. He then worked on spintronics, memory effects and memristor, bringing him, in 2013 to the University of California, Santa Barbara. Here he worked on devices and algorithms for neuromorphic computation. He is the lead author of the first demonstration of in-memory computing based on integrated memristive devices. In 2017 Dr. Prezioso became the co-founder and CEO of Mentium Technologies and has led the company since then.

 

... read more

Mirko Prezioso

CEO
Mentium Technologies

Mirko Prezioso has a M. Sc. in condensed matter physics from the University of Parma, Italy, where he also earned his PhD in advanced materials science and technology, in 2008. He then worked on spintronics, memory effects and memristor, bringing him, in 2013 to the University of California, Santa Barbara. Here he worked on devices and algorithms for neuromorphic computation. He is the lead author of the first demonstration of in-memory computing based on integrated memristive devices. In 2017 Dr. Prezioso became the co-founder and CEO of Mentium Technologies and has led the company since then.

 

Generative AI
Infrastructure

Author:

Jay Dawani

CEO
Lemurian Labs

Jay Dawani is co-founder & CEO of Lemurian Labs, a startup at the forefront of general purpose accelerated computing for making AI development affordable and generally available for all companies and people to equally benefit. Author of the influential book "Mathematics for Deep Learning", he has held leadership positions at companies such as BlocPlay and Geometric Energy Corporation, spearheading projects involving quantum computing, metaverse, blockchain, AI, space robotics, and more. Jay has also served as an advisor to NASA Frontier Development Lab, SiaClassic, and many leading AI firms.

... read more

Jay Dawani

CEO
Lemurian Labs

Jay Dawani is co-founder & CEO of Lemurian Labs, a startup at the forefront of general purpose accelerated computing for making AI development affordable and generally available for all companies and people to equally benefit. Author of the influential book "Mathematics for Deep Learning", he has held leadership positions at companies such as BlocPlay and Geometric Energy Corporation, spearheading projects involving quantum computing, metaverse, blockchain, AI, space robotics, and more. Jay has also served as an advisor to NASA Frontier Development Lab, SiaClassic, and many leading AI firms.