Prashanth Thinakaran
Prashanth Thinakaran is a Distinguished AI Infrastructure Engineer at Clockwork Systems, a pioneer in nano-second precise network telemetry and software-driven resilience that addresses the unprecedented scale, performance, and reliability Modern AI workloads demand from GPU clusters. In this role, he partners with AI Infrastructure teams at enterprises, hyperscalers and neoclouds to increase their visibility into issues impacting cluster uptime and optimize their availability and utilization with Clockwork’s solution.
Previously, he helped AI-native companies build on cloud-based GPU platforms, providing deep technical guidance on distributed training and inference, multi-node scaling, and performance tuning across complex infrastructure stacks. His Neocloud experience bridged the gap between product engineering and customer enablement, helping fast-moving teams adopt best practices in massive-scale model deployment and operations. Prior to that, Prashanth played a pivotal role at Cerebras Systems - a market leader in high-speed inferencing, - in the design, and deployment of Condor Galaxy 1, a Wafer-scale supercomputer. His work enabled rapid deployment timelines and seamless scaling of AI infrastructure across globally distributed data centers designed for both Inference and Training.
Prashanth also holds a Ph.D. in Computer Science and Engineering from Penn State, where his research focused on high-performance computing and cloud systems. His academic work has been published in top-tier venues including USENIX NSDI, ACM Middleware, ICDCS, and ACM SoCC. He has authored over a dozen peer-reviewed papers and a book chapter, and served as a reviewer for journals such as IEEE TPDS and TCC. During his Ph.D., he held teaching roles in systems programming, and computer architecture, and collaborated with Intel, VMware, and Adobe Research through internships, solving systems challenges at the intersection of academia and industry.
Charlie Fu
Charlie Fu is an optoelectronics veteran with over 30 years of leadership experience spanning global industry leaders such as Lumentum, Harris, Nortel, and JDSU, as well as two innovative startup ventures. He currently serves as Technical Director of High-Speed Optical Interconnect Solutions at Amphenol ACS, where he leads the strategic development of next-generation optical technologies for AI and high-performance computing applications.
Throughout his career, Charlie has consistently demonstrated a unique ability to bridge deep technical knowledge with strong business insight—delivering impactful product roadmaps and driving widespread market adoption. He holds a Ph.D. in Optics from the Chinese Academy of Sciences and a B.S. in Optoelectronics from Tsinghua University. He is the named inventor on ten U.S. patents, has authored more than ten journal papers as well as a technical book.
Ben Jawdat
Ben Jawdat is the founding CEO of Revterra, where he is working to commercialize a kinetic stabilizer solution to solve power quality challenges at AI datacenters and other commercial/industrial sites. Prior to starting Revterra, he worked on the development of new superconducting materials at the University of Houston where he received his PhD in physics, and completed postdoctoral studies at the Air Force Research Laboratory and Rice University.
