Mikael Holmberg – Is My Data Center Infrastructure Ready for AI Workloads
Mikael Holmberg is one of the few Distinguished Engineers at Extreme Networks and a member of the company’s Office of the CTO. He is a subject matter expert with deep knowledge of networking architectures and technologies, including AI and cloud. Mikael has worked in the networking industry for more than 30 years, with international experience across the globe, and he sits on several industry committees.
At BalticNOG 2026, Mikael will bring this expertise back to the stage with his talk, “Is My Data Center Infrastructure Ready for AI Workloads.”
Picking Up Where Last Year Left Off
This talk continues the AI conversation Mikael started at BalticNOG 2025, where he covered the difference between AI for Networks and AI Networks. This year, he goes deeper into the challenges AI workloads create for data center infrastructure, covering both training and inference.
How Data Moves From Training to Inference
Mikael will walk through the fundamentals of how data gets collected, structured, and cleaned up for training. He will then look at what happens once training is complete and the model moves into inference, and how that shift changes what the infrastructure needs to support.
Data Center Design for AI Fabrics
The talk covers data center design choices built around AI fabrics, including scale-up versus scale-out designs. Mikael will go through the challenges these designs create and the protocols used to address them.
Where the Ultra Ethernet Consortium Fits In
Mikael will share future guidelines from work underway within the Ultra Ethernet Consortium (UEC). The UEC’s goal is to deliver a complete architecture that optimizes Ethernet for high-performance AI and HPC networking, aiming to exceed the performance of today’s specialized technologies.
The UEC’s focus areas include functionality, performance, total cost of ownership, and developer and end-user friendliness, all while keeping changes to a minimum and maintaining Ethernet interoperability.
Why You Shouldn’t Miss This Talk
AI workloads are pushing data center infrastructure in directions many teams haven’t fully mapped out yet. Mikael’s talk gives you a grounded look at what training and inference actually demand from your infrastructure, and where the industry is headed next through the UEC’s work.
If you’re planning infrastructure for AI workloads now or in the next few years, this talk gives you a clear framing for the decisions ahead.
📅 When: 23-24 September 2026
📍 Where: BalticNOG 2026, Riga, Latvia
🔗 Don’t miss BalticNOG! Register today: https://balticnog.org/tickets/
