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Agentic and Gen AI

Author:

Barak Turovsky

Chief AI Officer
General Motors

Barak Turovsky is the Chief AI Officer at General Motors. He is an operating advisor and product and business leader with over 25 years of experience in artificial intelligence (Generative AI/Large Language Models, Computer Vision, etc), Ads & Commerce, Cloud applications, and Enterprise Software.

Prior to General Motors, Barak was VP of AI at Cisco, Chief Product Officer at Trax Retail, and Director & Head of Product for Languages AI at Google.

Barak Turovsky

Chief AI Officer
General Motors

Barak Turovsky is the Chief AI Officer at General Motors. He is an operating advisor and product and business leader with over 25 years of experience in artificial intelligence (Generative AI/Large Language Models, Computer Vision, etc), Ads & Commerce, Cloud applications, and Enterprise Software.

Prior to General Motors, Barak was VP of AI at Cisco, Chief Product Officer at Trax Retail, and Director & Head of Product for Languages AI at Google.

Compute
Gen AI

Author:

Dharmendra Modha

IBM Fellow, IBM Chief Scientist, Brain-Inspired Computing
IBM

Dr. Dharmendra S. Modha is an IBM Fellow and IBM Chief Scientist for Brain-inspired Computers.  He is a cognitive computing pioneer who envisioned and now leads a highly successful effort to develop brain-inspired computers.  The groundbreaking project is multi-disciplinary, multi-national, multi-institutional and has had worldwide scientific impact.  It has been funded to the tune of >$200M by DARPA, DOD, DOE, and Commercial contracts.  Its resulting revolutionary computing architecture and ecosystem break from the prevailing von Neumann paradigm and constitute a foundation for new classes of ultra-low-power, compact, real-time, multi-modal sensorimotor information technology systems.

 

Dr. Modha has made significant contributions to IBM businesses via innovations in caching mechanisms for storage controllers, clustering algorithms for services, and coding theory for disk drives.  His work has been featured in Economist, Science, New York Times, BBC, Discover, MIT Technology Report, Associated Press, Popular Mechanics, Communications of the ACM, Forbes, Fortune, and IEEE Spectrum amongst thousands of media mentions.  Author of over 80 papers and inventor of over 200 patents, he has been a recipient of ACM’s Gordon Bell Prize; Misha Mahowald Prize; R&D Magazine’s 2016 Scientist of the Year; USENIX/FAST Test of Time Award; Best Paper Awards at ASYNC and IDEMI; First Place, Science/NSF International Science & Engineering Visualization Challenge; IIT Bombay Distinguished Alumnus Award; UCSD ECE Distinguished Alumnus Award; R&D 100 Award; and is a Fellow of IEEE and World Technology Network. In 2013 and 2014, he was named as Best of IBM.  TrueNorth and NorthPole have both been accepted into the Computer History Museum.  On their 40th Anniversary, EE Times named Dr. Modha amongst 10 Electronics Visionaries to Watch.

 

Dr. Modha received BTech from IIT Bombay in 1990 and PhD from UCSD in 1995. 

Dharmendra Modha

IBM Fellow, IBM Chief Scientist, Brain-Inspired Computing
IBM

Dr. Dharmendra S. Modha is an IBM Fellow and IBM Chief Scientist for Brain-inspired Computers.  He is a cognitive computing pioneer who envisioned and now leads a highly successful effort to develop brain-inspired computers.  The groundbreaking project is multi-disciplinary, multi-national, multi-institutional and has had worldwide scientific impact.  It has been funded to the tune of >$200M by DARPA, DOD, DOE, and Commercial contracts.  Its resulting revolutionary computing architecture and ecosystem break from the prevailing von Neumann paradigm and constitute a foundation for new classes of ultra-low-power, compact, real-time, multi-modal sensorimotor information technology systems.

 

Dr. Modha has made significant contributions to IBM businesses via innovations in caching mechanisms for storage controllers, clustering algorithms for services, and coding theory for disk drives.  His work has been featured in Economist, Science, New York Times, BBC, Discover, MIT Technology Report, Associated Press, Popular Mechanics, Communications of the ACM, Forbes, Fortune, and IEEE Spectrum amongst thousands of media mentions.  Author of over 80 papers and inventor of over 200 patents, he has been a recipient of ACM’s Gordon Bell Prize; Misha Mahowald Prize; R&D Magazine’s 2016 Scientist of the Year; USENIX/FAST Test of Time Award; Best Paper Awards at ASYNC and IDEMI; First Place, Science/NSF International Science & Engineering Visualization Challenge; IIT Bombay Distinguished Alumnus Award; UCSD ECE Distinguished Alumnus Award; R&D 100 Award; and is a Fellow of IEEE and World Technology Network. In 2013 and 2014, he was named as Best of IBM.  TrueNorth and NorthPole have both been accepted into the Computer History Museum.  On their 40th Anniversary, EE Times named Dr. Modha amongst 10 Electronics Visionaries to Watch.

 

Dr. Modha received BTech from IIT Bombay in 1990 and PhD from UCSD in 1995. 

Author:

Tom Traugott

SVP, Strategy
EdgeCore

Tom spearheads EdgeCore’s understanding and adoption of emerging technologies with a current focus on the impacts and demands of AI on the data center ecosystem.  While interacting with a broad spectrum of technologists, industry thought leaders, and community stakeholders, Tom ensures that EdgeCore stays at the forefront of innovation, geographic expansion, and future trends in order to deliver on the company’s promise to provide safe, sustainable, and futureproof data center solutions to the world’s largest cloud and technology companies. Tom’s industry experience began in the post-dot com early 2000s period and stretches through the rise of enterprise wholesale colocation in the 2000s, through the rise of hyperscale cloud in the 2010s, and now generative AI driven world.

Prior to joining EdgeCore, Tom worked for Amazon Web Services, where he was accountable for strategy and execution for new and existing regions across EMEA, APAC, and the Americas, along with diligence and strategy for additional regions under evaluation. Prior to Amazon, Tom was co-practice leader of Cassidy Turley’s (now Cushman & Wakefield’s) Data Center Advisory Practice, focused on end-user representation and capital markets transactions. Tom previously worked at CoreSite Realty Corporation as Regional VP of Sales.

Tom holds a B.A. in Social Studies from Harvard College, with honors.

Tom Traugott

SVP, Strategy
EdgeCore

Tom spearheads EdgeCore’s understanding and adoption of emerging technologies with a current focus on the impacts and demands of AI on the data center ecosystem.  While interacting with a broad spectrum of technologists, industry thought leaders, and community stakeholders, Tom ensures that EdgeCore stays at the forefront of innovation, geographic expansion, and future trends in order to deliver on the company’s promise to provide safe, sustainable, and futureproof data center solutions to the world’s largest cloud and technology companies. Tom’s industry experience began in the post-dot com early 2000s period and stretches through the rise of enterprise wholesale colocation in the 2000s, through the rise of hyperscale cloud in the 2010s, and now generative AI driven world.

Prior to joining EdgeCore, Tom worked for Amazon Web Services, where he was accountable for strategy and execution for new and existing regions across EMEA, APAC, and the Americas, along with diligence and strategy for additional regions under evaluation. Prior to Amazon, Tom was co-practice leader of Cassidy Turley’s (now Cushman & Wakefield’s) Data Center Advisory Practice, focused on end-user representation and capital markets transactions. Tom previously worked at CoreSite Realty Corporation as Regional VP of Sales.

Tom holds a B.A. in Social Studies from Harvard College, with honors.

Author:

Priya Kesavan

Principal, Azure AI Systems Strategy
Microsoft

Priya Kesavan is an AI Strategy Principal at Microsoft. In her current role, she leads the development of long-term strategies and roadmaps for Microsoft's in-house AI hardware systems. In the past, Priya held several leadership positions in product management for SoC and systems development at Intel and Cisco. Driven by a passion for harnessing AI to address complex real-world challenges and improve user experiences, she is a strong advocate for "AI for good." Priya is also committed to empowering women in technology and AI, spearheading initiatives to foster their growth and advancement. She holds a degree in Computer Engineering from Madras University.

 

Priya Kesavan

Principal, Azure AI Systems Strategy
Microsoft

Priya Kesavan is an AI Strategy Principal at Microsoft. In her current role, she leads the development of long-term strategies and roadmaps for Microsoft's in-house AI hardware systems. In the past, Priya held several leadership positions in product management for SoC and systems development at Intel and Cisco. Driven by a passion for harnessing AI to address complex real-world challenges and improve user experiences, she is a strong advocate for "AI for good." Priya is also committed to empowering women in technology and AI, spearheading initiatives to foster their growth and advancement. She holds a degree in Computer Engineering from Madras University.

 

Agentic and Gen AI

Author:

Gayathri Radhakrishnan

Partner
Hitachi Ventures

Gayathri is currently Partner at Hitachi Ventures. Prior to that, she was with Micron Ventures, actively investing in startups that apply AI to solve critical problems in the areas of Manufacturing, Healthcare and Automotive. She brings over 20 years of multi-disciplinary experience across product management, product marketing, corporate strategy, M&A and venture investments in large Fortune 500 companies such as Dell and Corning and in startups. She has also worked as an early stage investor at Earlybird Venture Capital, a premier European venture capital fund based in Germany. She has a Masters in EE from The Ohio State University and MBA from INSEAD in France. She is also a Kauffman Fellow - Class 16.

Gayathri Radhakrishnan

Partner
Hitachi Ventures

Gayathri is currently Partner at Hitachi Ventures. Prior to that, she was with Micron Ventures, actively investing in startups that apply AI to solve critical problems in the areas of Manufacturing, Healthcare and Automotive. She brings over 20 years of multi-disciplinary experience across product management, product marketing, corporate strategy, M&A and venture investments in large Fortune 500 companies such as Dell and Corning and in startups. She has also worked as an early stage investor at Earlybird Venture Capital, a premier European venture capital fund based in Germany. She has a Masters in EE from The Ohio State University and MBA from INSEAD in France. She is also a Kauffman Fellow - Class 16.

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.

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:

Milind Naphade

SVP AI Foundations
Capital One

Milind Naphade, SVP, Technology, leads the AI Foundations team at Capital One. In this capacity, Milind partners with product, tech, and business leaders to advance AI efforts, such as generative AI, at Capital One.

Prior to joining Capital One, Milind was the Chief Technology Officer of Metropolis at NVIDIA where he led the technology and innovation strategy and execution for NVIDIA’s Metropolis platform and product offerings. Prior to joining NVIDIA, Milind held executive and leadership roles at Cisco and IBM Research. As the Director of the cognitive systems organization at Cisco, he built the organization that focused on machine learning, natural language processing and AI. In his 14 years at IBM Research, Milind led several company-wide strategic AI initiatives in multimedia analytics and smarter planet solutions.

 

 

Milind Naphade

SVP AI Foundations
Capital One

Milind Naphade, SVP, Technology, leads the AI Foundations team at Capital One. In this capacity, Milind partners with product, tech, and business leaders to advance AI efforts, such as generative AI, at Capital One.

Prior to joining Capital One, Milind was the Chief Technology Officer of Metropolis at NVIDIA where he led the technology and innovation strategy and execution for NVIDIA’s Metropolis platform and product offerings. Prior to joining NVIDIA, Milind held executive and leadership roles at Cisco and IBM Research. As the Director of the cognitive systems organization at Cisco, he built the organization that focused on machine learning, natural language processing and AI. In his 14 years at IBM Research, Milind led several company-wide strategic AI initiatives in multimedia analytics and smarter planet solutions.

 

 

Author:

Raul Martynek

CEO
Databank

Raul Martynek joined DataBank in 2017 as the Chief Executive Officer. In this role, he defines the strategic direction of the company and its operations. Raul is a 20+ year veteran in the telecom and Internet Infrastructure sector. He most recently served as a Senior Advisor for Digital Bridge Holdings LLC. Prior to Digital Bridge, he served as CEO for New Jersey-based data center and managed services operator Net Access, LLC. Net Access was acquired in 2015 by Denver-based data center operator Cologix. 5Prior to Net Access, he was the CEO of Voxel dot Net, Inc., a global managed hosting and cloud company, which was acquired by Internap Network Services Corp. in 2012. Mr. Martynek also served as the Chief Restructuring Officer of Smart Telecom, a Dublin, Ireland-based fiber carrier which was acquired by Digiweb in 2009.

Before that he evaluated investment opportunities in the telecommunications and Internet sector as a Senior Advisor at Plainfield Asset Management, a $4B hedge fund. Prior to Plainfield, Mr. Martynek spent 13 years with telecom and Internet provider InfoHighway Communications Corp; first as Chief Operating Officer of Eureka Networks and then as President and CEO of InfoHighway. InfoHighway was acquired by Broadview Networks in 2007. Mr. Martynek earned a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from Binghamton University and received a Master Degree in International Affairs from Columbia University School of International and Public Affairs.

Raul Martynek

CEO
Databank

Raul Martynek joined DataBank in 2017 as the Chief Executive Officer. In this role, he defines the strategic direction of the company and its operations. Raul is a 20+ year veteran in the telecom and Internet Infrastructure sector. He most recently served as a Senior Advisor for Digital Bridge Holdings LLC. Prior to Digital Bridge, he served as CEO for New Jersey-based data center and managed services operator Net Access, LLC. Net Access was acquired in 2015 by Denver-based data center operator Cologix. 5Prior to Net Access, he was the CEO of Voxel dot Net, Inc., a global managed hosting and cloud company, which was acquired by Internap Network Services Corp. in 2012. Mr. Martynek also served as the Chief Restructuring Officer of Smart Telecom, a Dublin, Ireland-based fiber carrier which was acquired by Digiweb in 2009.

Before that he evaluated investment opportunities in the telecommunications and Internet sector as a Senior Advisor at Plainfield Asset Management, a $4B hedge fund. Prior to Plainfield, Mr. Martynek spent 13 years with telecom and Internet provider InfoHighway Communications Corp; first as Chief Operating Officer of Eureka Networks and then as President and CEO of InfoHighway. InfoHighway was acquired by Broadview Networks in 2007. Mr. Martynek earned a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from Binghamton University and received a Master Degree in International Affairs from Columbia University School of International and Public Affairs.

Agentic and Gen AI
Enterprise Use Case

Author:

Daniel Wu

Strategic AI Leadership | Keynote Speaker | Educator | Entrepreneur Course Facilitator
Stanford University

Daniel Wu is an accomplished technical leader with over 20 years of expertise in software engineering, AI/ML, and team development. With a diverse career spanning technology, education, finance, and healthcare, he is credited for establishing high-performing AI teams, pioneering point-of-care expert systems, co-founding a successful online personal finance marketplace, and leading the development of an innovative online real estate brokerage platform. Passionate about technology democratization and ethical AI practices, Daniel actively promotes these principles through involvement in computer science and AI/ML education programs. A sought-after speaker, he shares insights and experiences at international conferences and corporate events. Daniel holds a computer science degree from Stanford University.

Daniel Wu

Strategic AI Leadership | Keynote Speaker | Educator | Entrepreneur Course Facilitator
Stanford University

Daniel Wu is an accomplished technical leader with over 20 years of expertise in software engineering, AI/ML, and team development. With a diverse career spanning technology, education, finance, and healthcare, he is credited for establishing high-performing AI teams, pioneering point-of-care expert systems, co-founding a successful online personal finance marketplace, and leading the development of an innovative online real estate brokerage platform. Passionate about technology democratization and ethical AI practices, Daniel actively promotes these principles through involvement in computer science and AI/ML education programs. A sought-after speaker, he shares insights and experiences at international conferences and corporate events. Daniel holds a computer science degree from Stanford University.

As AI workloads continue to grow in complexity and scale, improving energy efficiency has become a

critical design objective from Silicon to Systems. This tutorial explores a holistic approach to optimizing

performance per watt across the entire hardware/software stack.

Compute
Gen AI

Author:

Godwin Maben

Fellow
Synopsys

Godwin Maben is a seasoned professional with an extensive 30-year experience in the semiconductor industry, specializing in low-power design and power optimization for System on Chip (SoC) architectures. Godwin has contributed to the development of SoCs for mobile, IoT, GPU, and networking applications, focusing on ARM and RISC-V based designs.

Godwin has a proven track record in developing the architecture of Power Management Integrated Circuits (PMIC) for mobile and IoT devices, and architecting mobile SoCs with advanced power structures, including power gating, Dynamic Voltage and Frequency Scaling (DVFS), and Multi-Voltage (MV) techniques.

In addition to optimizing logic, system, and RTL architectures to reduce power for hundreds of blocks, Godwin has extensive experience in RTL coding, specifically targeting energy efficiency for hundreds of partitions. Skilled in developing custom cells to minimize glitches and has implemented algorithms within tools to optimize power consumption.

Godwin has developed comprehensive methodologies for implementing zero-pin retention flops from pre-RTL to silicon and has architected tools such as UPF Architect. Additionally, has created higher-level abstractions to Natural Language Processing (NLP) for various tools, including HDL, SDC, and UPF.

With expertise in designing low-power circuits and HDL coding with a focus on low power, Godwin excels in power architecture, PMIC design, and debugging power issues from simulation through emulation, synthesis, place, and route (P&R), and Engineering Change Order (ECO) processes. Dedicated to advancing low-power design techniques and methodologies, ensuring the development of energy-efficient and high-performance semiconductor solutions.

 

Godwin Maben

Fellow
Synopsys

Godwin Maben is a seasoned professional with an extensive 30-year experience in the semiconductor industry, specializing in low-power design and power optimization for System on Chip (SoC) architectures. Godwin has contributed to the development of SoCs for mobile, IoT, GPU, and networking applications, focusing on ARM and RISC-V based designs.

Godwin has a proven track record in developing the architecture of Power Management Integrated Circuits (PMIC) for mobile and IoT devices, and architecting mobile SoCs with advanced power structures, including power gating, Dynamic Voltage and Frequency Scaling (DVFS), and Multi-Voltage (MV) techniques.

In addition to optimizing logic, system, and RTL architectures to reduce power for hundreds of blocks, Godwin has extensive experience in RTL coding, specifically targeting energy efficiency for hundreds of partitions. Skilled in developing custom cells to minimize glitches and has implemented algorithms within tools to optimize power consumption.

Godwin has developed comprehensive methodologies for implementing zero-pin retention flops from pre-RTL to silicon and has architected tools such as UPF Architect. Additionally, has created higher-level abstractions to Natural Language Processing (NLP) for various tools, including HDL, SDC, and UPF.

With expertise in designing low-power circuits and HDL coding with a focus on low power, Godwin excels in power architecture, PMIC design, and debugging power issues from simulation through emulation, synthesis, place, and route (P&R), and Engineering Change Order (ECO) processes. Dedicated to advancing low-power design techniques and methodologies, ensuring the development of energy-efficient and high-performance semiconductor solutions.