Speakers

Dr. Thomas Zacharia leads AMD’s global expansion of public and private partnerships, engaging with governments, NGOs, and other organizations to accelerate the deployment of AMD-powered AI solutions. These initiatives support a rapidly growing number of global projects and applications focused on leveraging AI for the public good.

A distinguished industry leader, Dr. Zacharia brings extensive experience in scientific research, technology development, public policy, and strategic partnerships. Over his 35-year tenure at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), he served as Director and oversaw the creation and implementation of the AMD-powered Frontier supercomputer—the first to break the Exascale barrier. Frontier, powered by AMD EPYC™ processors and AMD Instinct™ accelerators, has been recognized as the world’s fastest supercomputer by the Top500 list since May 2022. It has received multiple Gordon Bell Awards for outstanding scientific achievements and continues to advance research in healthcare, materials, energy, and more. Under Dr. Zacharia’s leadership, Oak Ridge established itself as the premier high-performance computing center globally, with four successive systems ranked No. 1 on the TOP500 list.

From 2012 to 2015, Dr. Zacharia served as Executive Vice President of the Qatar Foundation for Education, Science and Community Development, where he set the vision for Qatar’s investment of 2.8 percent of its GDP in research and development. He also chaired the Qatar Science and Technology Park, fostering industry and university partnerships to advance initiatives in public health, computing, and energy.

Dr. Zacharia is Chair of the Board of Directors for the Nashville Branch of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta. He holds a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from the National Institute of Technology Karnataka, Surathkal, India; an M.S. in Materials Science from the University of Mississippi; and a Ph.D. in Engineering Science from Clarkson University in Potsdam, New York.