Cloud & AI Infrastructure Day 1 Highlights

Building an AI-Native Engineering Function

Ben Pearce, Founder - Elevated You
Nic Neate, CTO - Nimbus Maps

Nic joined a conversation with Ben Pearce, founder of Elevated You and stage chair, to discuss the journey taken by Nimbus Maps to rebuild not just their product but their whole engineering function to maximise their value and impact in the age of AI.

Unleashing AI Performance with Dell PowerEdge, AMD EPYC™ and Instinct™ Accelerators

JC Baratault, Business Development Manager - AMD

This presentation showcased how Dell PowerEdge servers powered by AMD EPYC™ processors and AMD Instinct™ accelerators deliver a unified, open ecosystem for end‑to‑end AI – from training and fine‑tuning large language models to high‑throughput inference at scale. Attendees will learn how this joint Dell + AMD solution accelerates time‑to‑value, improves TCO, and provides the flexibility to run demanding GenAI and HPC workloads with enterprise‑grade reliability and security.

The Inference Imperative: A New Playbook for AI-First Infrastructure

Nirmal Ranganathan, Chief Technology Officer, Managed Public Cloud - Rackspace Technology

This keynote explores what AI-first infrastructure actually requires - FinOps disciplines purpose-built for inference economics, edge-ready architectures, and operational models that make sovereign AI deployable at scale. The organizations getting this right today are building tomorrow's competitive moats.

From Pit Lane to Production: How Formula 1 Scales Secure, Cloud-Native Infrastructure at Speed

Ryan Kirk, Head of Cloud & DevOps - Formula 1

This session provided a walkthrough of Formula 1’s unique development cycle from race-to-race, challenges, and the path-to-production. The talk will examine how Formula One operates at the cutting edge of cloud services and innovation, whilst ensuring security and agility along the way. Attendees will get a behind-the-scenes look into the setup in days leading to race day, offering practical insights on how real-time workloads and mission-critical infrastructure are prepared, tested, and scaled.

From Idea to Impact: A Founder’s Journey of Building and Scaling a Technology Company

Emmanuel Okafor, CTO & Co-Founder - Babymomsi
Parkins Ifeanyichukwu, Co-Founder - Babymomsi

The discussion covered early-stage decision-making, challenges faced during rollout, and how leadership roles collaborate to balance speed, quality, and business priorities. Rather than focusing on theory, the session shares practical insights drawn from real product and company-building experience.

Deploying AI and HPC Superclusters: Who Will Build the Strongest Business Case in Europe?

Simon Justnes, Chief Commercial Officer - Green Mountain

As Europe becomes increasingly ready for large-scale AI deployments, the race for capacity intensifies. This session covered who will emerge ahead, and who can develop compelling, self-evident business cases when factors like energy security, sustainability, cost, and regulatory demands all come into play?

What Women Want: Attracting the Next Generation of Tech Talent

Emily Hall-Strutt, Director - Next Tech Girls
Ama Annan, Infra Transformation Specialist - Accenture
Ishita Narsiker, Data Engineer - Bloomberg
Hannah Adegun, Project Manager Degree Apprentice - IBM

Early-career women are choosing tech for its creativity, impact and opportunity – yet many still hesitate to apply, or struggle to see themselves belonging in the industry. In this panel, members of the Next Tech Girls community shared what really attracted them into tech, what nearly stopped them from applying, and how their early experiences shaped their confidence and ambition. Together, they explore what tech leaders can do differently to attract and grow the next generation of women in tech.

Why App-First Transformations Fail — And How to Modernise at Scale

Vladimir Pronin, Principal Product Manager - Holland & Barrett

Declaring an app-first strategy is easy; making it work at scale is not. This session explored a real-world case study of how a large omnichannel organisation transformed a centrally owned mobile app into a shared platform used by 10+ squads — reducing time to market and driving measurable growth through clearer ownership, alignment, and platform thinking.

Beyond the Glass Ceiling: Women Building the Future of Tech

Ellie Rahimi, Senior Software Engineer - Trainline
Callie Cromer, Director - Women In Tech
Emily Hall-Strutt, Director - Next Tech Girls
Kasia Dutch, Software Engineer - Starling Bank

Trailblazing women in engineering, AI, and cloud infrastructure and beyond share their journeys, challenges, and wins in a sector still striving for balance. This session had raw insights, inspiring stories, and actionable advice for building inclusive innovation teams.

Redefining Hybrid Cloud: Sovereignty, Simplicity, and Trust

Chris Cowdry, Cloud Solutions Architect - Trust Systems

This session explored what comes next for cloud in the UK: how to regain control, reduce lock‑in, and build resilience through data independence, sovereignty‑by‑design, predictable economics, evergreen IaaS, and targeted managed services. Attendees will leave with practical guidance for creating cloud environments that are compliant, cost‑stable, AI‑ready, and built to grow on your terms.

Enterprise Networking Reimagined: As-a-Service, Secure, and Seamless

Phil Oultram, Sales Director, International - Alkira

Enterprises need networks that are simple, agile and built to scale fast. Alkira delivers a fully managed global network that deploys in minutes, unifies connectivity across every cloud, and eliminates the complexity of traditional architectures. If you need seamless networking that keeps pace with the business, this is your new operating model.