Benchmarking AI infrastructure readiness: Engineering resilience and competitive advantage
About This Webcast
As artificial intelligence reshapes business environments, the infrastructure that supports it must evolve just as rapidly. Join Brian Gero, SVP Core and Strategic Engineering at Flexential, along with Adam Knapp, VP of Engineering, DigitalOcean, and Kenneth Chaney, PARCC Associate Director of AI and Technology, University of Pennsylvania, for a critical analysis based on the findings of the newly published State of AI Infrastructure Report. This webinar is a cornerstone event for leaders seeking to understand the seismic shifts occurring in AI-driven business environments. Drawing on comprehensive survey data from IT executives, this session will illustrate the substantial impacts of AI integration on enterprise-scale IT infrastructures and outline the essential strategies for navigating this new terrain. Key takeaways: Maximizing AI investments: Unpack how leading companies are not just spending on AI but are strategically expecting and achieving quick, substantial financial returns. Overcoming infrastructure hurdles: Delve into the specific challenges that constrict AI scalability and learn how forward-thinking companies are overcoming these to foster growth. Bridging the talent gap: Address the critical shortage of AI skills that threatens to stall innovation, with practical strategies for talent development and acquisition. Proactive capacity planning: Highlight the strategic importance of anticipating IT infrastructure needs, ensuring readiness to capitalize on AI opportunities as they arise. Securing AI deployments: Explore advanced techniques to enhance network performance and fortify security measures, ensuring that your AI operations are both robust and scalable. Don’t miss this opportunity to gain actionable insights and benchmark your strategy against leaders across industries. Whether scaling AI initiatives or just beginning, this session will help you engineer the resilience and readiness needed to thrive in 2025 and beyond.
Speakers
Brian Gero
SVP Core and Strategic Engineering , Flexential
Brian is the Senior Vice President for Core and Strategic Engineering at Flexential, where he leads the Professional Services, Backbone and Cloud, and Data Protection Engineering and Operations teams. With over two decades of global leadership experience, Brian has consistently demonstrated his ability to enhance customer satisfaction, tackle complex challenges, and drive operational efficiencies. His expertise lies in team integration and high-performance team development, underpinned by a leadership style emphasizing active listening, data-driven decision-making, cross-functional collaboration, and strategic planning.
Adam Knapp
VP, Engineering , DigitalOcean
Adam Knapp is VP of Engineering at DigitalOcean, leading data center engineering and operations, fleet and capacity management, and GPU infrastructure deployments to support the growth of DigitalOcean’s cloud and AI/ML offerings. He helped lead DigitalOcean’s AI/ML infrastructure initiative launched in April 2024, contributing to over 200% year-over-year revenue growth in Q2 2024. Previously, Adam served as VP of Product & Engineering at GoDaddy and as COO at WebPros, where he focused on scaling cloud platforms and driving operational efficiency. At DigitalOcean, he focuses on modernizing infrastructure and proactive capacity planning to enhance customer experience, enable customers to adopt AI capabilities, and expand DigitalOcean’s own use of AI across its platform.
Kenneth Chaney
PARCC Associate Director of AI and Technology , University of Pennsylvania
Ken Chaney is the Associate Director of the Penn Advanced Research Computing Center (PARCC), where he works with a university-wide team to expand research computing capabilities across the University of Pennsylvania. His first project at PARCC delivers a DGX SuperPOD, an AMD EPYC Genoa CPU cluster, and 5PB of storage, effectively doubling the university’s research computing capacity in a single deployment. Ken earned his Ph.D. from the Department of Computer and Information Science at Penn, where he managed a lab-wide computing environment while remaining active in the computer vision research community. At PARCC, he focuses on delivering high-value computing resources to the university’s leading AI research labs while also lowering barriers to entry for groups beginning their journey into AI.