As customers try to figure out how to present data to Agentic AI applications, many of them are realizing that it’s time for the storage infrastructure team to step up and take a seat at the table. In this episode of Utilizing Tech, recorded live at NetApp Insight in Las Vegas, hosts Stephen Foskett and Guy Currier from The Futurum Group sit down with Ingo Fuchs, Chief Technologist for AI at NetApp, to explore the critical role of data infrastructure in supporting enterprise AI and agentic AI applications. As organizations move AI workloads into production, traditional infrastructures—especially storage teams—must take a more active role in enabling performance, efficiency, and governance. Ingo emphasizes the emerging needs for data quality, control, compliance, and currency, particularly as AI agents begin making decisions and interacting with sensitive enterprise data. The conversation highlights how NetApp’s capabilities, such as AI Data Engine and native infrastructure integrations, enable real-time data pipeline management, enforce guardrails, and ensure consistent and secure data delivery. This shift represents a transformative intersection of storage, infrastructure, and AI operations, paving the way for scalable and reliable enterprise AI solutions.'

Guest:

Ingo Fuchs, Chief Technologist of AI at NetApp

Hosts:

⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Stephen Foskett⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, President of the Tech Field Day Business Unit and Organizer of the ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Tech Field Day Event Series⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

⁠⁠⁠⁠Frederic Van Haren⁠⁠⁠⁠, Founder and CTO of HighFens, Inc.

⁠⁠⁠⁠Guy Currier⁠⁠⁠⁠, Chief Analyst at Visible Impact, The Futurum Group.

For more episodes of Utilizing Tech, head to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠the dedicated website⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and follow the show ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠on X/Twitter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠on Bluesky⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, and ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠on Mastodon⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.

Most generative AI work has been fairly general purpose to date, but it is far more effective to develop expert models focused on specific industries. This episode of Utilizing Tech features Arun Subramaniyan, founder and CEO of Articul8 AI, in conversation with Guy Currier and Stephen Foskett. According to Arun, an agent is a model with a set of tools plus data that has agency to be called and interact with other agents. If these agents are domain-specific they can perform tasks more effectively than general purpose agents at certain points in this chain. Agentic AI is able to accomplish tasks previously thought impossible, and these systems keep improving. But people remain responsible for using and managing these systems. Costs can rise significantly if AI is used improper, but it is possible to deploy it profitably. Companies that can combine domain expertise with a novel AI-powered application are breaking free from the pack.

Guest: Arun Subramaniyan, CEO and Founder of Articul8 AI

Hosts:

⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Stephen Foskett⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, President of the Tech Field Day Business Unit and Organizer of the ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Tech Field Day Event Series⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

⁠⁠⁠Frederic Van Haren⁠⁠⁠, Founder and CTO of HighFens, Inc.

⁠⁠⁠Guy Currier⁠⁠⁠, Chief Analyst at Visible Impact, The Futurum Group.

For more episodes of Utilizing Tech, head to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠the dedicated website⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and follow the show ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠on X/Twitter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠on Bluesky⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, and ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠on Mastodon⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.

From the very first episode of this podcast back in 2020, we've been focused on practical applications for AI technology, and we're starting to see these come to market with agentic tools. This episode of Utilizing Tech features Brad Shimmin, VP and Practice Lead for Data and Analytics at The Futurum Group discussing the ways AI is gaining autonomy with hosts Frederic Van Haren of HighFens and Stephen Foskett, organizer of AI Field Day. Agentic AI is all about autonomy, leveraging generative AI to perform actions on our behalf. There are many different types of agentic AI components, ranging from tools for data and analytics, connections and processes for integrating data, and end-user agents. Increasingly, model context protocol (MCP) is used to specify the capabilities and data for each of these tools, enabling them to work together as part of an agentic process. Frameworks like agent2agent (A2A) enable these components to work together. And models are becoming true platforms to serve the needs of users. Companies like OpenAI, Google, Anthropic, and Mistral are transforming their models into real agentic platforms, while Salesforce, Microsoft, Oracle, Google, and more are trying to support their business customers with Agentic AI. The Futurum Group is addressing this market with their new Signal reports, including a forthcoming one focused on agentic AI.

Guest: Brad Shimmin, VP and Practice Lead, Data and Analytics at The Futurum Group

Hosts:

⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Stephen Foskett⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, President of the Tech Field Day Business Unit and Organizer of the ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Tech Field Day Event Series⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

⁠⁠Frederic Van Haren⁠⁠, Founder and CTO of HighFens, Inc.

⁠⁠Guy Currier⁠⁠, Chief Analyst at Visible Impact, The Futurum Group.

For more episodes of Utilizing Tech, head to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠the dedicated website⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and follow the show ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠on X/Twitter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠on Bluesky⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, and ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠on Mastodon⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.

Our online interactions include audio, video, and sensor data, but most AI applications are still focused on text. This episode of Utilizing Tech considers how we can integrate multimodal data with agentic applications with Vishakha Gupta, founder and CEO of ApertureData, Frederic Van Haren of HighFens, and Stephen Foskett of Tech Field Day. After decades of developing AI models to process spoken word, images, video, and other multimodal data, the ascendance of large language models has largely focused on text. This is changing, as AI applications are increasingly leveraging multimodal data, including text, audio, video, and sensors. Many agentic applications still pass data as structured or unstructured text, but it is possible to use multimedia data as well, for example passing a clip of a video from agent to agent if the system has true multimodal understanding. Enterprise applications are moving beyond text to include voice and video, data in PDFs like charts and diagrams, medical sensors and images, and more.

Guest:

Vishakha Gupta, CEO and Founder, ApertureData

Hosts:

⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Stephen Foskett⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, President of the Tech Field Day Business Unit and Organizer of the ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Tech Field Day Event Series⁠⁠⁠⁠

⁠Frederic Van Haren⁠, Founder and CTO of HighFens, Inc.

⁠Guy Currier⁠, Chief Analyst at Visible Impact, The Futurum Group.

For more episodes of Utilizing Tech, head to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠the dedicated website⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and follow the show ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠on X/Twitter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠on Bluesky⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, and ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠on Mastodon⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.

AI is the hottest topic in tech right now, evolving dramatically over the previous eight seasons of this podcast. We are kicking off Utilizing Tech season nine with a discussion of the state of the art of Agentic AI with Frederic Van Haren of HighFens, Guy Currier of Visible Impact, and Stephen Foskett of Tech Field Day. Generative AI augments our capabilities, and is being used every day by millions of people. Agentic AI combines reasoning with actions, enabling AI to perform actions on our behalf. Although AI does not reason like us, the way it manipulates data resembles intelligence, and iterative analysis can result in a chain of thought that strongly resembles reasoning. Agents can then receive context and take actions based on this using a framework like Model Context Protocol (MCP). These techniques help move generative AI from concept to production, building real applications rather than simply processing text. This season of Utilizing Tech will help our listeners understand the emerging agentic AI, and how this technology can make end users more productive and build profitable businesses using AI technology.

Hosts:

⁠⁠⁠⁠Stephen Foskett⁠⁠⁠⁠, President of the Tech Field Day Business Unit and Organizer of the ⁠⁠⁠⁠Tech Field Day Event Series⁠⁠⁠

Frederic Van Haren, Founder and CTO of HighFens, Inc.

Guy Currier, Chief Analyst at Visible Impact, The Futurum Group.

For more episodes of Utilizing Tech, head to ⁠⁠⁠⁠the dedicated website⁠⁠⁠⁠ and follow the show ⁠⁠⁠⁠on X/Twitter⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠on Bluesky⁠⁠⁠⁠, and ⁠⁠⁠⁠on Mastodon⁠⁠⁠⁠.

Fore more episodes: https://www.utilizingtech.com/

Storage software running on modern hardware can deliver incredible performance and capability to support AI applications. This episode of Utilizing Tech wraps up our season with a discussion of WEKA's data platform for AI with Alan McSeveney, Scott Shadley of Solidigm, and host Stephen Foskett. Modern hardware is capable of incredible performance, but bottlenecks remain. The limiting factor for AI processors is memory capacity: GPUs are hungry for data and must be refreshed from storage quickly enough to keep them running at scale. Storage can also be used to share data between GPUs across the data center and to cache working data to accelerate calculation. The secret to scalability, from storage to applications to AI, is distribution and parallel processing. Modern software runs at incredible scale, and all elements of the stack must match. Technologies like Kubernetes allow applications to use huge clusters of workers all contributing to scale and performance. WEKA runs this way, matching the GPU clusters and web applications we rely on today.

Guest: Alan McSeveney, Field CTO of Media and Entertainment, WEKA

Hosts:

⁠⁠⁠Stephen Foskett⁠⁠⁠, President of the Tech Field Day Business Unit and Organizer of the ⁠⁠⁠Tech Field Day Event Series⁠⁠⁠

⁠⁠⁠Jeniece Wnorowski⁠⁠⁠, Head of Influencer Marketing at ⁠⁠⁠Solidigm⁠⁠⁠

⁠⁠⁠Scott Shadley⁠⁠⁠, Leadership Narrative Director and Evangelist at ⁠⁠⁠Solidigm⁠⁠⁠

Follow Tech Field Day ⁠⁠⁠on LinkedIn⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠on X/Twitter,⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠on Bluesky⁠⁠⁠, and ⁠⁠⁠on Mastodon⁠⁠⁠. Visit the ⁠⁠⁠Tech Field Day website⁠⁠⁠ for more information on upcoming events.

For more episodes of Utilizing Tech, head to ⁠⁠⁠the dedicated website⁠⁠⁠ and follow the show ⁠⁠⁠on X/Twitter⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠on Bluesky⁠⁠⁠, and ⁠⁠⁠on Mastodon⁠⁠⁠.

More episodes and seasons of Utilizing Tech: https://utilizingtech.com/

Immersion cooling requires specialized servers designed to operate submerged in a tank of coolant, but there are many benefits. In this episode of Utilizing Tech, sponsored by Solidigm, we continue our conversation on immersion cooling with Patrick Scateni of Hypertec, the leading manufacturer of immersion-cooled servers. Most of the current demand for immersion cooling is in the datacenter, but edge computing is rapidly adopting this technology thanks to the demands of AI applications. Hypertec calls their servers immersion born, since they are designed for this specific application rather than being modified for use in a coolant tank. Sustainability is growing in importance and immersion cooled solutions are much more power efficient, much closer to a PUE of 1 compared to 1.5 for a conventional air-cooled server. It also uses no water, while air-cooled data centers often use evaporative cooling equivalent to an olympic-sized pool every day or two. Immersion cooled servers can be packed closer, enabling smaller datacenters, and are cheaper, more reliable, and longer-lived than conventional equipment.

Guest: Patrick Scateni, VP of Global Sales at Hypertec

Hosts:

⁠⁠⁠Stephen Foskett⁠⁠⁠, President of the Tech Field Day Business Unit and Organizer of the ⁠⁠⁠Tech Field Day Event Series⁠⁠⁠

⁠⁠⁠Jeniece Wnorowski⁠⁠⁠, Head of Influencer Marketing at ⁠⁠⁠Solidigm⁠⁠⁠

⁠⁠⁠Scott Shadley⁠⁠⁠, Leadership Narrative Director and Evangelist at ⁠⁠⁠Solidigm⁠⁠⁠

Follow Tech Field Day ⁠⁠⁠on LinkedIn⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠on X/Twitter,⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠on Bluesky⁠⁠⁠, and ⁠⁠⁠on Mastodon⁠⁠⁠. Visit the ⁠⁠⁠Tech Field Day website⁠⁠⁠ for more information on upcoming events.

For more episodes of Utilizing Tech, head to ⁠⁠⁠the dedicated website⁠⁠⁠ and follow the show ⁠⁠⁠on X/Twitter⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠on Bluesky⁠⁠⁠, and ⁠⁠⁠on Mastodon⁠⁠⁠.

More episodes and seasons of Utilizing Tech: https://utilizingtech.com/

Modern AI servers generate a lot of heat, but the industry is ready with revolutionary technologies like immersion cooling. This episode of Utilizing Tech features Micah Jordan from DUG, discussing specialized server solutions with Jeniece Wnorowski of Solidigm and Stephen Foskett. Although it sounds exotic, companies like DUG have been using immersion cooling for decades. Once they proved the value of the technology in their own datacenter, DUG began delivering immersion cooled containers wherever they are needed, especially at the edge. This uniform and efficient cooling allows servers to work harder while also extending their lifespan and reducing the risk of component failure. DUG’s containerized AI racks are being deployed around the world closer to users, lowering the latency and enabling rapid response to demands. DUG is working with partners like Hypertec to build, certify, and support immersion cooling for end customers, achieving higher density and lower energy consumption.

Guest: Micah Jordan, Account Executive at DUG

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/micah-jordan1/

Hosts:

⁠⁠⁠Stephen Foskett⁠⁠⁠, President of the Tech Field Day Business Unit and Organizer of the ⁠⁠⁠Tech Field Day Event Series⁠⁠⁠

⁠⁠⁠Jeniece Wnorowski⁠⁠⁠, Head of Influencer Marketing at ⁠⁠⁠Solidigm⁠⁠⁠

⁠⁠⁠Scott Shadley⁠⁠⁠, Leadership Narrative Director and Evangelist at ⁠⁠⁠Solidigm⁠⁠⁠

Follow Tech Field Day ⁠⁠⁠on LinkedIn⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠on X/Twitter,⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠on Bluesky⁠⁠⁠, and ⁠⁠⁠on Mastodon⁠⁠⁠. Visit the ⁠⁠⁠Tech Field Day website⁠⁠⁠ for more information on upcoming events.

For more episodes of Utilizing Tech, head to ⁠⁠⁠the dedicated website⁠⁠⁠ and follow the show ⁠⁠⁠on X/Twitter⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠on Bluesky⁠⁠⁠, and ⁠⁠⁠on Mastodon⁠⁠⁠.

As enterprises roll out production applications using AI model inferencing, they are finding that they are limited by the amount of memory that can be addressed by a GPU. This episode of Utilizing Tech features Steen Graham, founder of Metrum AI, discussing modern RAG and agentic AI applications with Ace Stryker and Stephen Foskett. Achieving the promise of AI requires access to data, and the memory required to deliver this is increasingly a focus of AI infrastructure providers. Technologies like DiskANN allow workloads to be offloaded to solid-state drives rather than system memory, and this surprisingly results in better performance. Another idea is to offload a large AI model to SSDs and deploy larger models on lower-cost GPUs, and this is showing a great deal of promise. Agentic AI in particular can be run in an asynchronous model, enabling them to take advantage of lower-spec hardware including older GPUs and accelerators, reduced RAM capacity and performance, and even all-CPU infrastructure. All of this suggests that AI can be run with less financial and power resources than generally assumed.

Guest:

Steen Graham is the Founder and CEO of Metrum AI. You can connect with Steen on LinkedIn and learn more about Metrum AI on their website.

Guest Host:

Ace Stryker is the Director of Product Marketing at Solidigm. You can connect with Ace on LinkedIn and learn more about Solidigm and their AI efforts on their dedicated AI landing page or watch their AI Field Day presentations from the recent event.

Hosts:

⁠⁠⁠⁠Stephen Foskett⁠⁠⁠⁠, President of the Tech Field Day Business Unit and Organizer of the ⁠⁠⁠⁠Tech Field Day Event Series⁠⁠⁠⁠

⁠⁠⁠⁠Jeniece Wnorowski⁠⁠⁠⁠, Head of Influencer Marketing at ⁠⁠⁠⁠Solidigm⁠⁠⁠⁠

⁠⁠⁠⁠Scott Shadley⁠⁠⁠⁠, Leadership Narrative Director and Evangelist at ⁠⁠⁠⁠Solidigm⁠⁠⁠⁠

Follow Tech Field Day ⁠⁠⁠⁠on LinkedIn⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠on X/Twitter,⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠on Bluesky⁠⁠⁠⁠, and ⁠⁠⁠⁠on Mastodon⁠⁠⁠⁠. Visit the ⁠⁠⁠⁠Tech Field Day website⁠⁠⁠⁠ for more information on upcoming events.

For more episodes of Utilizing Tech, head to ⁠⁠⁠⁠the dedicated website⁠⁠⁠⁠ and follow the show ⁠⁠⁠⁠on X/Twitter⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠on Bluesky⁠⁠⁠⁠, and ⁠⁠⁠⁠on Mastodon⁠⁠⁠⁠.

Standards bodies don't just set technical specifications, they also drive greater understanding of topics like storage. This episode of Utilizing Tech, brought to you by Solidigm, features Dr. J Metz, Chair of SNIA and the Ultra Ethernet Consortium and technical director at AMD. Over decades of advancement, enterprise storage has evolved to be a central requirement of modern systems, especially where AI is concerned. And storage is a lot more than just capacity: It's about performance and power, connectivity and throughput, availability and reliability. Standards bodies like SNIA and UEC help raise awareness of these requirements while also setting standards to address them. Technological developments made in one area often have unexpected applications in others. This makes it even more important to foster open communication to enable ideas to spread.

Host:

J Metz is the Chair of both the Ultra Ethernet Consortium and SNIA, as well as a Technical Director at AMD. You can connect with J on LinkedIn or on X/Twitter. Learn more about The Ultra Ethernet Consortium on their website. Learn more about SNIA on their website. Learn more about AMD here.

Hosts:

⁠⁠⁠⁠Stephen Foskett⁠⁠⁠⁠, President of the Tech Field Day Business Unit and Organizer of the ⁠⁠⁠⁠Tech Field Day Event Series⁠⁠⁠⁠

⁠⁠⁠⁠Jeniece Wnorowski⁠⁠⁠⁠, Head of Influencer Marketing at ⁠⁠⁠⁠Solidigm⁠⁠⁠⁠

⁠⁠⁠⁠Scott Shadley⁠⁠⁠⁠, Leadership Narrative Director and Evangelist at ⁠⁠⁠⁠Solidigm⁠⁠⁠⁠

Follow Tech Field Day ⁠⁠⁠⁠on LinkedIn⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠on X/Twitter,⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠on Bluesky⁠⁠⁠⁠, and ⁠⁠⁠⁠on Mastodon⁠⁠⁠⁠. Visit the ⁠⁠⁠⁠Tech Field Day website⁠⁠⁠⁠ for more information on upcoming events.

For more episodes of Utilizing Tech, head to ⁠⁠⁠⁠the dedicated website⁠⁠⁠⁠ and follow the show ⁠⁠⁠⁠on X/Twitter⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠on Bluesky⁠⁠⁠⁠, and ⁠⁠⁠⁠on Mastodon⁠⁠⁠⁠.