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A staggering number of AI projects fail before reaching production, and the primary culprit is data. As enterprises re-architect their infrastructure to support generative, agentic, and physical AI across distributed infrastructures, the data layer is emerging as the lynch pin for success.

Learn how to architect a strategic data foundation that increases efficiency using infrastructure you already have, to simplify AI data pipelines, enable AI anywhere across any on-premises and cloud storage, and prepare for a future at a much larger scale.

Room 206

Author:

Jeff Echols

VP of Strategic Partners
Hammerspace

With a dynamic 20-year career in enterprise software, Jeff Echols has established himself as a leader in building differentiated solutions, strategic relationships, and driving joint partner success. He is currently the VP of Strategic Partners at Hammerspace, focusing on the company's AI Solutions and go-to-market strategy. His extensive experience spans enterprise and startup environments, including two IPOs and international assignments. Throughout his career at companies like WEKA, Nutanix, and CommVault, Jeff has led sales, product marketing, and corporate strategy teams, contributing to significant revenue growth and market differentiation.

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Jeff Echols

VP of Strategic Partners
Hammerspace

With a dynamic 20-year career in enterprise software, Jeff Echols has established himself as a leader in building differentiated solutions, strategic relationships, and driving joint partner success. He is currently the VP of Strategic Partners at Hammerspace, focusing on the company's AI Solutions and go-to-market strategy. His extensive experience spans enterprise and startup environments, including two IPOs and international assignments. Throughout his career at companies like WEKA, Nutanix, and CommVault, Jeff has led sales, product marketing, and corporate strategy teams, contributing to significant revenue growth and market differentiation.


As AI workload demands continue to accelerate, Cloud Service Providers, System OEMs, and IP/Silicon vendors require a scalable, high-performance solution to support advanced workloads. By enhancing performance, optimizing power and cost efficiency, and promoting interoperability and supply chain diversity, the UALink 200G 1.0 Specification delivers a low-latency, high-bandwidth interconnect designed for efficient communication between accelerators and switches within AI computing pods.

In this session, a panel of UALink experts will explore the latest developments in the UALink 200G 1.0 Specification and demonstrate how it enables scalable, multi-node AI architectures. Attendees will also have the chance to engage directly with the panel to discuss future applications and learn how UALink-enabled systems will lay the foundation for next generation AI/ML systems.

Room 201

Author:

Nafea Bshara

VP/Distinguished Engineer
AWS

Nafea Bshara is a vice president/distinguished engineer working on compute, machine learning, network, and storage architecture with Amazon Web Services.

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Nafea Bshara

VP/Distinguished Engineer
AWS

Nafea Bshara is a vice president/distinguished engineer working on compute, machine learning, network, and storage architecture with Amazon Web Services.

Author:

Gaya Nagarajan

VP of Network Infrastructure
Meta

Gaya Nagarajan joined Meta in 2012 as Network Engineer and currently serves as the Vice President of Network Infrastructure. Based in the Bay Area, he leads the team responsible for the full networking stack and end-to-end lifecycle: from designing and building to operating one of the largest networks in the world that seamlessly connects 3+ billions of users – catering to their diverse and dynamic demands. Gaya is instrumental in ensuring the performance, robustness, scalability, and efficiency of Meta's networks within data centers and its large-scale AI clusters; global backbone (including subsea and terrestrial fiber investments) to Meta’s edge network and global CDN. Prior to his tenure at Meta, Gaya made significant contributions at Brocade, developing innovative products designed to meet the complex needs of large service providers. He holds a M.S. in Computer Science from the University of Kansas, and a Bachelor of Engineering from the University Visvesvaraya College of Engineering (UVCE) in India. Beyond his professional and academic achievements, Gaya is an avid sports enthusiast and keeps an active lifestyle: he has a passion for cricket, golf, and yoga.

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Gaya Nagarajan

VP of Network Infrastructure
Meta

Gaya Nagarajan joined Meta in 2012 as Network Engineer and currently serves as the Vice President of Network Infrastructure. Based in the Bay Area, he leads the team responsible for the full networking stack and end-to-end lifecycle: from designing and building to operating one of the largest networks in the world that seamlessly connects 3+ billions of users – catering to their diverse and dynamic demands. Gaya is instrumental in ensuring the performance, robustness, scalability, and efficiency of Meta's networks within data centers and its large-scale AI clusters; global backbone (including subsea and terrestrial fiber investments) to Meta’s edge network and global CDN. Prior to his tenure at Meta, Gaya made significant contributions at Brocade, developing innovative products designed to meet the complex needs of large service providers. He holds a M.S. in Computer Science from the University of Kansas, and a Bachelor of Engineering from the University Visvesvaraya College of Engineering (UVCE) in India. Beyond his professional and academic achievements, Gaya is an avid sports enthusiast and keeps an active lifestyle: he has a passion for cricket, golf, and yoga.

Author:

Amber Huffman

Principal Engineer
Google Cloud

Amber Huffman is a Principal Engineer in Google Cloud responsible for leading industry engagement efforts in the data center ecosystem across servers, storage, networking, accelerators, power, cooling, security, and more. Before joining Google, she spent 25 years at Intel serving as an Intel Fellow and VP.  Amber is the President of NVM Express, on the Board of Directors for the Open Compute Project Foundation (OCP), on the Board of Directors for Ultra Accelerator Link (UALink), and the chair of the RISC-V Software Ecosystem (RISE) Project. She has led numerous industry standards to successful adoption, including NVM Express, Open NAND Flash Interface, and Serial ATA.

... read more

Amber Huffman

Principal Engineer
Google Cloud

Amber Huffman is a Principal Engineer in Google Cloud responsible for leading industry engagement efforts in the data center ecosystem across servers, storage, networking, accelerators, power, cooling, security, and more. Before joining Google, she spent 25 years at Intel serving as an Intel Fellow and VP.  Amber is the President of NVM Express, on the Board of Directors for the Open Compute Project Foundation (OCP), on the Board of Directors for Ultra Accelerator Link (UALink), and the chair of the RISC-V Software Ecosystem (RISE) Project. She has led numerous industry standards to successful adoption, including NVM Express, Open NAND Flash Interface, and Serial ATA.

Moderator

Author:

Peter Onufryk

Fellow
Intel

Peter Onufryk is a Fellow at Intel Corporation. His research interests include IP and data center architecture along with UALink, NVMe, universal chiplet interconnect express (UCIe). Peter received his Ph.D. degree in electrical and computer engineering from Rutgers University.

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Peter Onufryk

Fellow
Intel

Peter Onufryk is a Fellow at Intel Corporation. His research interests include IP and data center architecture along with UALink, NVMe, universal chiplet interconnect express (UCIe). Peter received his Ph.D. degree in electrical and computer engineering from Rutgers University.

A 60 minute exclusive pre-event preview for members of the press on upcoming announcements from a select handful of summit sponsors including: Recogni, Neureality, Moores Lab, Euclyd and Andes Technology.

Room 206

Reach out to [email protected] for more information or if you'd like a press ticket.  

Categorized Sample Attendee List
 

Tisha Holden

Market President
Optum

Serving as Market President at Optum, Tisha has spent more than 25 years at the forefront of health plan innovation, helping clients build strategic, comprehensive programs to address their toughest challenges and achieve financial health and operational excellence at scale. 

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Tisha Holden

Market President
Optum

Tisha Holden

Market President
Optum

Serving as Market President at Optum, Tisha has spent more than 25 years at the forefront of health plan innovation, helping clients build strategic, comprehensive programs to address their toughest challenges and achieve financial health and operational excellence at scale.