Density Done Right:

Enabling High Performance Compute Through Effective Rack Management And Cooling Strategies

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  David Lambiaso

  VP, Portfolio Management

  Legacy Investing

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  Steve Benson

  Steve Benson serves as Prime Data Centers’ Vice President of Critical Operations. He brings 20+ years of mission critical operational leadership experience. Steve is responsible for the day-to-day operations of all PDC’s data centers, building a world class operations team, with 100% uptime. Steve has a passion for developing and mentoring operations management and technicians. Steve has led data center operations and construction efforts in North America, Europe, and Asia, managing over 300+ MW of critical infrastructure. Steve is a military veteran and comes to Prime with data center leadership experience at AWS, QTS, Savvis, and Centurylink.

  Prime Data Centers

  VP, Critical Operations

  Steve Benson

  VP, Critical Operations

  Prime Data Centers

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  Ali Heydari

  Ali Heydari is Data Center Technologist at Nvidia in charge of all data center technology development at Nvidia. In this role, he is developing direct to chip liquid cooling technologies using cold plates, cooling distribution units and manifolds for cooling of Nvidia’s high heat density. Prior to Nvidia, he worked as senior director in charge of Rigetti’s Quantum Computers using the most futuristic technology in today’s data center compute. Accomplishments include, setting up the first Quantum Cloud Services enabling over the cloud access of the Quantum Computers. Prior to that he served as Senior Technical Director and Chief Data Center Architect at Baidu, the largest search engine and AI company in China. In this role, he was server and data center architect in charge of hardware and data center design, development and deployment in China’s largest data center search and AI company. He was responsible for development of cutting edge data center and server hardware technology such as IDEC and free air-cooled data center design, high power density server rack design, liquid cooling of GPU/CPU servers and liquid cooled heat exchanger rack and data center solutions for achieving extremely low data center PUE/WUE at Baidu’s data centers in China. Formerly, he was Senior Hardware Engineer at Twitter where he was responsible for grounds up development of Twitter’s data center ODM server development. Earlier, he was Senior Hardware Engineer at Facebook where he helped in developing Facebook’s original OCP server and data center products. Prior to that he worked at Sun Microsystems and spend about 10 years as Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Sharif University of Technology in Iran. He received his B.S. in mechanical engineering from University of Illinois, Urbana, M.S., Ph.D. in mechanical engineering and M.A. in applied mathematics from University of California, Berkeley. He has over 25 issued patents in data center cooling technologies.

  Nvidia

  Distinguished Engineer

  Ali Heydari

  Distinguished Engineer

  Nvidia

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  Matt Pfile

  Matt has 20 years of experience in telecom engineering, critical infrastructure acquisition, corporate banking, management consulting, and commercial negotiations. He spent the previous 12+ years at Google leading over $5B of global infrastructure acquisitions, and led data center site selection strategy, third-party data center leasing, utility interconnections, and land acquisitions across the Americas and Asia. While at Google, he recognized the need for a data center company that truly understood customer needs and founded Crane. Matt holds a B.S. from Georgetown University and an MBA from Washington University in St. Louis.

  Crane Data Centers

  Founder & CEO

  Matt Pfile

  Founder & CEO

  Crane Data Centers

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  Greg Stover

  With over 30 years of IT and data center, infrastructure and IT efficiency and optimization expertise, Greg has a proven track record of pushing the technology innovation envelope with the leading Thermal, Power, Monitoring and DCIM Solutions with Cloud Providers, Colocation Operators, End-Users and the Channel. As an evangelist for new technology, rapid change and continuous improvement, Greg has demonstrated a unique ability to coordinate disparate teams and bridge IT, Facilities and partner/vendor gaps while they work to solve the daily questions of Cloud, Colo, On-Prem, DR, EDG/IoT and whatever is next? All while ensuring reliability, resiliency, availability, optimal service and value to the business. Greg is Director of National Accounts and resides in Laguna Hills with his family!

  Vertiv

  Global Director, Hi-Tech Development

  Moderator

  Greg Stover

  Global Director, Hi-Tech Development

  Vertiv

Managing Hardware In a Software World:

What Have Been the Most Notable Advances in Hardware Innovation Thus Far Shaping the Future of Data Centers

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  Zaid Ali Kahn

  Zaid is currently GM in Microsoft’s Silicon, Cloud Hardware, and Infrastructure Engineering where he leads systems engineering and hardware development for Azure including AI systems and infrastructure. Zaid is part of the technical leadership team across Microsoft that sets AI hardware strategy for training and inference. Zaid's teams are also responsible for software and hardware engineering efforts developing specialized compute systems, FPGA network products and ASIC hardware accelerators. Prior to Microsoft Zaid was head of infrastructure at LinkedIn where he was responsible for all aspects of architecture and engineering for Datacenters, Networking, Compute, Storage and Hardware. Zaid also led several software development teams focusing on building and managing infrastructure as code. This included zero touch provisioning, software-defined networking, network operating systems (SONiC, OpenSwitch), self-healing networks, backbone controller, software defined storage and distributed host-based firewalls. The network teams Zaid led built the global network for LinkedIn, including POP's, peering for edge services, IPv6 implementation, DWDM infrastructure and datacenter network fabric. The hardware and datacenter engineering teams Zaid led were responsible for water cooling to the racks, optical fiber infrastructure and open hardware development which was contributed to the Open Compute Project Foundation (OCP). Zaid holds several patents in networking and, is a sought-after keynote speaker at top tier conferences and events. Zaid is currently the chairperson for the OCP Foundation Board. He is also currently on the EECS External Advisory Board (EAB) at UC Berkeley and a board member of Internet Ecosystem Innovation Committee (IEIC), a global Internet think tank promoting Internet diversity. Zaid has a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science and Physics from the University of the South Pacific.

  Microsoft

  GM, Cloud AI & Advanced Systems Engineering

  Zaid Ali Kahn

  GM, Cloud AI & Advanced Systems Engineering

  Microsoft

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  Rebecca Weekly

  Rebecca is VP of Platform and Infrastructure Engineering at GEICO, leading their hybrid cloud transformation to repatriate key workloads, develop and deliver a true hybrid Open Source stack, and modernize their physical infrastructure. She recently led the organization that built, validated, and automated the full lifecycle management of Cloudflare’s compute, network, storage, and AI systems in 300+ cities and 100+ countries delivering >20% of the world’s Internet traffic. Rebecca is the former Open Compute Project President and Chairperson, helping ensure that hyperscale innovation can be scaled to all organizations, is on Fortune’s 40 Under 40 2020 list of most influential people in Technology, is on Business Insider's 2022 Cloudverse100 list of the builders of the next generation of the Internet, and was voted CloudGirls Trailblazer for women in technology in 2023. In her "spare" time, she is the lead singer of the funk and soul band, Sinister Dexter, and enjoys her passion of dance and choreography. She has two amazing little boys, and loves to run (after them, and on her own). Rebecca graduated from MIT with a degree in Computer Science and Electrical Engineering.

  GEICO

  VP, Infrastructure

  Rebecca Weekly

  VP, Infrastructure

  GEICO

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  John Hanahan

  John Hanahan is Sr. Director, Digital Services Product Management for Equinix, with end-to-end product management responsibility for Equinix Fabric, Fabric Cloud Router and Equinix Precision Time product management. Prior to his current role, John originally joined Equinix to build Network Edge, Equinix’ Virtual Network Function platform. In his Pre-Equinix days, John held numerous Product Management and Product marketing roles, including a Series A Startup where he led Product and Marketing, doing a little bit of everything, to a mid-sized Networking Firm, driving product strategy, portfolio rationalization, positioning, messaging, and product life cycle management. John first got into networking and product management during his 13 years at Cisco Systems in a variety of product management leadership roles managing multi-billion dollar products and services. John holds a M.B.A. from University of California at Berkeley’s Haas School of Business, and a B.A. in Biological Sciences from the University of California, Santa Barbara.

  Equinix

  Senior Director, Digital Services Product Management

  John Hanahan

  Senior Director, Digital Services Product Management

  Equinix

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  Nabeel Mahmood

  Nabeel Mahmood is a Technologist, Futurist and a Keynote Speaker. His career is driven by one question – what’s next? He is passionate about the power of technology to deliver competitive and transformational change and the need to develop digital leadership that will create the enterprise of the future. He believes strongly in simplification, with a purpose. Nabeel brings 18 plus years of experience leading large-scale global technology organizations through seasons of explosive growth via M&A, global expansion, implementing new business models and technology innovation. His expertise includes leading organizations through transformation changes, connecting IT to the needs of the business, technology innovation, Big Data, Cloud, ERP, IoT, Mobility and Data Centers. He brings a unique blend of experiences spanning the entire breadth of technology from Grid to Chip. At, heart he’s a true technologist and futurist, he is a proven strategist, winsome communicator and leader with extraordinary vision and operational expertise within very large, complex organizations. Nabeel is a strategic CIO identifying opportunities that are being underpinned by emerging technologies. He serves on multiple boards and is an advisor to CIOs and CEO across a number of industries.

  Nomad Futurist Foundation

  Co-Founder

  Nabeel Mahmood

  Co-Founder

  Nomad Futurist Foundation

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  Kevin Imboden

  Global Director, Market Research & Intelligence

  EdgeConneX

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  Jordan Burnsed

  Jordan Burnsed has worked with the Data Center industry for the past 7 years focusing on electronic security and automation. He is currently the Senior Director of Critical Infrastructure at InVue, a manufacturer of data center security solutions. Jordan has over 15 years of experience working in the software and hardware industry focusing on electronic safety and security. Jordan has served on multiple design committees for some of the most secure and large-scale facilities including, Southern Company, University of Georgia, NASA, and many others.

  InVue Security Products

  Senior Director, Critical Infrastructure

  Moderator

  Jordan Burnsed

  Senior Director, Critical Infrastructure

  InVue Security Products

Getting To the Bottom Line:

The Best Practices Around Maximizing Efficiency And Reducing Energy Without Increasing Your Costs

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  Jackie Pasierbowicz

  Edge Market Manager

  Stulz

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  Conor Aarset

  Account Director, Critical Facilities

  T5 Data Centers

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  Chris Pruitt

  Senior Director, Operations - Silicon Valley

  CoreSite

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  Craig Compiano

  Craig Compiano is the co-founder and President of Modius Inc. Craig is a successful executive and entrepreneur and has been our President since 2004. Craig has a passion for operational systems development and performance analytics for data centers. He brings 30+ years of business and technology expertise to his role. Before Modius, Craig was at Andersen Consulting and the co-founder & VP of Paymap, Inc. Craig holds a Bachelor of Science in Industrial and Systems Engineering from USC and an MBA in Finance from UC Berkeley. He also holds a patent for an Electronic Payment Technology that is widely deployed in the banking industry. Craig is also a US Navy Veteran.

  Modius

  CEO

  Moderator

  Craig Compiano

  CEO

  Modius