​Description

​TAI Leadership Series is an invite-only gathering of senior AI and engineering leaders from enterprises and startups, designed for candid technical discussion and peer connections around the technologies shaping AI.

​As AI moves from experimentation into production, GPU infrastructure is becoming one of the biggest constraints on scaling. Availability, cost, utilization, inference economics, and data transfer can all become significant challenges as workloads grow.

​Join a small group of AI/ML engineers, technical leaders, and enterprise AI practitioners for an evening focused on the practical infrastructure challenges of scaling AI.

​We’ll explore questions such as:

• ​How are AI teams dealing with GPU availability and capacity constraints?

• ​What does inference actually cost at scale?

• ​How can teams improve GPU utilization and infrastructure efficiency?

• ​When do hyperscaler economics stop making sense?

• ​What alternatives exist for scaling AI workloads cost-effectively?

• ​How should infrastructure strategies differ between training and inference?

​The event will feature technical presentations from Akamai, followed by a panel discussion with three senior AI leaders sharing their perspectives and experience.

​The evening will finish with drinks and informal networking with other people working at the forefront of AI in Tokyo.

​​Agenda

​18:00 Doors open & Reception

​18:30 - 18:40 Opening & Introduction

​18:40 - 19:30 Keynote & Panel Discussion: Breaking the GPU Bottleneck: Scaling AI Cost-Effectively Beyond Hyperscaler Constraints

​19:30 - 20:30 Networking

​Talk

​Title: Cutting AI Cloud Costs: Smarter GPU and Egress Architecture

​Speaker: Vineeth Varughese (Principal Product Marketing Lead APAC, Akamai)

​Speaker bio: Vineeth Varughese (Principal Product Marketing Lead, APAC) leads product marketing for Akamai Cloud across Asia Pacific and Japan, with a focus on helping organizations realize practical value from cloud and AI. He drives go-to-market strategy for AI inference on Akamai Cloud and brings experience from Microsoft, Adobe, Deloitte, and Cloudera. Vineeth is passionate about helping customers build scalable digital experiences, accelerate innovation with AI, and turn emerging technology into lasting business outcomes.

​Panel

​Breaking the GPU Bottleneck: Scaling AI Cost-Effectively Beyond Hyperscaler Constraints

​Moderator: Vineeth Varughese (Principal Product Marketing Lead APAC, Akamai)

​Panelists

• ​Mike Omoto (VPoE, Third Intelligence) is a technology executive and cognitive scientist with engineering leadership experience at Google Maps, Mercari, and Presto. He has worked at the intersection of human behavior and complex software systems, including leading AI products focused on privacy-preserving use of location data. He brings extensive experience scaling engineering organizations and leading cross-cultural technical teams in Japan and the US.

• ​Kosuke Arima (CTO, Stockmark) is a co-founder of Stockmark, a Tokyo-based AI SaaS company. After completing his Master's in Information Science at the University of Tokyo and working at Nippon Steel Solutions, he co-founded Stockmark in 2016. He leads the company's R&D and product development, including the development of Japanese large language models such as Stockmark-100B.

​Companies

• ​Third Intelligence is an AI research and product company developing “Ubiquitous AGI,” focused on building AI systems that can learn and adapt to the needs of individuals and organizations. The company combines frontier AI research with product development, exploring new approaches to AI that can act as trusted, highly capable partners in everyday work and life.

• ​Stockmark is a Tokyo-based AI company developing generative AI products for enterprises, helping organizations access, analyze, and act on large volumes of business and technical information. Its products apply AI to enterprise knowledge and workflows, with applications spanning information discovery, R&D, and manufacturing.

• ​Akamai is a global cloud computing and cybersecurity company with more than 25 years of experience building and protecting the internet. Its platform combines market-leading security solutions, threat intelligence, and one of the world’s most distributed cloud computing platforms, providing global enterprises with the performance, scale, reliability, and cost efficiency needed to power and protect their digital operations.

​​Organizers

​Ilya Kulyatin is an entrepreneur with work and academic experience in the US, Netherlands, Singapore, UK, and Japan. He holds a BA in Economics, an MA in Finance, and an MSc in Machine Learning. He's a 3x founder, now helping Japan grow the local AI ecosystem through a not-for-profit community, Tokyo AI (TAI), while building an AI-native system integrator and solutions provider, Foundry Labs株式会社.

​​​Supporters

​Foundry Labs K.K. is a Tokyo-based AI systems integrator and solutions provider, delivering end-to-end support for enterprises: from strategy design through implementation, deployment, and operations. They tailor AI to each client’s operational, regulatory, and security requirements, with hands-on experience across finance, government, and industry, and a track record of shipping production systems in secure and regulated environments.

​Akamai is a global cloud computing and cybersecurity company with more than 25 years of experience building and protecting the internet. Its platform combines market-leading security solutions, threat intelligence, and one of the world’s most distributed cloud computing platforms, providing global enterprises with the performance, scale, reliability, and cost efficiency needed to power and protect their digital operations.

​About TAI

​Tokyo AI (TAI) is the largest international AI community in Japan, with 5,000+ members mainly based in Tokyo: engineers, researchers, investors, product managers, and corporate innovation leaders. Through 80+ events a year and 300+ speakers spanning startups, enterprises, and academia, TAI connects the people building AI in Japan with the global ecosystem, working to transform Tokyo into a global AI hub.

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