HPC Summit Southeast Asia 2026

Registration and Networking Breakfast

Welcome Address

Opening remarks from W.Media introducing the HPC Summit Southeast Asia 2026 – setting the tone for a day of open collaboration among open standard communities.

James Loggie

Business Analyst

w.media

The AI Compute Race: Where Southeast Asia Stands in the Global HPC Landscape

As AI adoption accelerates globally, the race for compute capacity is intensifying across regions, with the United States, China, and the Middle East making aggressive investments in GPU clusters, energy infrastructure, and AI-ready data centers. Against this backdrop, Southeast Asia is emerging as a critical, yet complex, frontier for AI and high-performance computing infrastructure.This keynote examines where Southeast Asia stands in the global HPC landscape, assessing its competitiveness across key factors including power availability, connectivity, capital flows, and regulatory environments. It will explore how regional markets such as Singapore, Johor, and Batam are positioning themselves to capture AI-driven demand, and the extent to which Southeast Asia can move beyond being a supporting node to becoming a strategic hub for AI compute.

Dan Nishball

Director of Research

SemiAnalysis

Opening Panel: The Future of High-Performance Infrastructure

The rapid rise of AI is transforming the global infrastructure landscape, driving unprecedented demand for compute, power, connectivity, and advanced cooling technologies. As organizations race to deploy next-generation AI capabilities, high-performance infrastructure is becoming the foundation of modern digital economies.This opening panel brings together industry leaders to examine how HPC and AI-driven workloads are reshaping infrastructure strategies across data centers, cloud platforms, networking, and energy ecosystems. From GPU clusters and liquid cooling to power availability and infrastructure scalability, the discussion will explore the technologies, investment priorities, and operational models defining the next era of high-performance computing.

Moderator

Paul Mah

Executive Editor

w.media

Kavickumar Muruganathan

ESG Policy & Planning Director (APAC & Middle East Africa)

Microsoft

GMI Cloud

Representative

Freyr Technology AI

Representative

OpenAI

Representative

ai&

Representative

Keynote: Democratizing AI Infrastructure: Scalable HPC for Enterprise and Edge

As AI adoption accelerates across industries, access to high-performance computing is no longer limited to hyperscalers. Enterprises and emerging markets are increasingly seeking scalable, cost-efficient infrastructure to support AI workloads. This keynote explores how modular server platforms and flexible system architectures are enabling the democratization of HPC and AI infrastructure. It will examine how organizations can deploy GPU-enabled clusters across edge and enterprise environments, balancing performance, cost, and deployment speed while supporting a broader ecosystem of AI innovation.

Anderson Wijaya

Account Manager

ASRock Rack

Morning Coffee & Networking

In the exhibition area

Operating HPC Data Centers: Managing the Challenges of High-Density AI Infrastructure!

As AI adoption accelerates, HPC data centers are evolving into some of the most power-intensive and operationally complex facilities ever built. Operators are now confronting a new generation of challenges from extreme rack densities and liquid cooling requirements to power constraints, supply chain pressures, cybersecurity risks, and the growing need for operational resilience.This panel explores the current and future concerns shaping the operation of HPC and AI-driven data centers, and how the industry is adapting infrastructure, talent, and operational strategies to support the next era of compute.

Moderator

James Rix

Head of Data Centres PDS Southeast Asia & Korea

JLL

Suppan Saravanamuthu

Director - Head of Design and Construction - Asia Pacific

Iron Mountain Data Centers

Jason Lim Zhi Kok

Head of Solutions Team, Electrical Sector, East Asia

Eaton

Ir. Ts. Maxx Wong Meng Fai

Head, Technical and solutions

YTL Data Centers

Spotlight: Modular HPC for Edge & Enterprise

We’ll explore the new v2 specification, emphasizing modularity, rapid deployment, and sustainability in existing 19-inch rack environments.

Dennis Sim

Technical Manager, RCDD

Panduit

HPC Network Fabrics and AI Cluster Interconnects

A technical session covering the emerging role of high-bandwidth, low-latency interconnects (InfiniBand, Ethernet, CXL) in open HPC system design.

Freyr Technology AI

Representative

Networking Lunch

In the exhibition area

Panel: Cooling the AI Factory: Scaling Liquid and Immersion Cooling for High-Density AI Infrastructure

As AI-driven computing accelerates, HPC environments are rapidly evolving into some of the most power-dense facilities ever deployed. Traditional air-cooling methods are increasingly being challenged by next-generation GPU clusters and AI workloads that demand greater thermal efficiency, operational resilience, and energy optimisation at scale.

Moderator

Mark Roberts

Data Centre Market Development Director - Asia Pacific

bp

Professor Lee Poh Seng

Head of Mechanical Engineering Department

National University of Singapore (NUS)

Thiru Prakassh

Regional Manager for Data Center Operations APAC

OVHcloud

Mark Langford

Regional Technical Director – Asia

Stulz

From Enterprise IT to AI Infrastructure: How Traditional Operations Must Pivot for the AI Era

The rise of AI is fundamentally reshaping enterprise infrastructure strategies, forcing organisations to rethink how they design, operate, secure, and scale their IT environments. Traditional enterprise infrastructure built around predictable workloads and conventional applications is increasingly being challenged by the demands of GPU-intensive computing, high-speed data movement, and AI-driven operations.This panel explores how enterprise IT teams, infrastructure leaders, and operations professionals must evolve to remain relevant in an AI-first world.

Panel: Reliable AI Compute: When Cost Meets Performance

As AI infrastructure scales at unprecedented speed, operators are under increasing pressure to deliver massive compute capacity while managing rising costs across power, cooling, networking, and facility design. In the race to deploy AI factories quickly and efficiently, the industry is beginning to question long-held assumptions around resilience, redundancy, and operational standards.Will the next generation of HPC and AI infrastructure continue to follow traditional mission-critical design principles, or will operators accept new risk models in exchange for lower costs and faster deployment?This panel explores the growing tension between reliability, performance, and economics in the AI era, and examines whether conventional data center philosophies such as N+1 and N+2 redundancy remain practical for large-scale AI environments.

Lye Yit Tho

Vice President Design, APAC

Bridge Data Centres

Insight: China's Open Compute Strategy and Scorpio Rack Evolution

Outlines how China’s rack standard supports its AI Compute Network initiative, creating interoperability and supply-chain alignment across hyperscalers.

Maury G

Managing Partner

Pivotale AI

Closing Panel: HPC Infrastructure 2035: The Future Winners, Losers, and Industry Shifts Ahead

HPC Infrastructure 2035: The Future Winners, Losers, and Industry Shifts AheadAs AI accelerates the global race for compute, the HPC infrastructure landscape is expected to undergo profound transformation over the next decade. By 2035, the industry may look dramatically different from today shaped by power availability, cooling innovation, geopolitical shifts, AI economics, and the growing convergence between compute, energy, and capital markets.This closing panel brings together industry leaders to examine which technologies, business models, operators, and regions are likely to emerge as winners in the next era of high-performance infrastructure and which may struggle to remain competitive.

Simon Lewry

Director, Solution Architect – APAC

Digital Realty

Closing speech

Sundown Networking Reception