CloudFest USA Q&A With Harikrishna Reddy

This week’s insider convo is with Harikrishna Reddy, Technical Lead Manager, Infra Silicon at Meta. Hari has been in the industry for decades, cutting his teeth at Cirrus Logic, MediaQ (a startup acquired by Nvidia) and Qualcomm before joining Meta to build their infrastructure silicon team from the ground up. 

In our conversation, hear from Hari what developments over his career have surprised him most, what excites him about the future of the internet and which current and past CEOs he’d love to invite for a fireside chat!

Please briefly introduce yourself to any of our readers who may not know you yet!

I’m Harikrishna, VP/Tech-Lead for Silicon Development that drives Meta’s infrastructure. My journey began at Cirrus Logic as an ASIC Design Engineer, followed by a stint at MediaQ, a startup acquired by Nvidia, where I spent 13 years contributing to its growth. I then led Qualcomm’s Video and Computer Vision IPs for the Snapdragon line of products. When the opportunity arose to build and technically lead Meta’s Infrastructure Silicon team from the ground up seven years ago, I seized it, drawn by the potential for innovation and pushing boundaries in a new domain. Meta’s leadership trusted our vision and supported our strategic roadmap. I’m proud to say we’ve built an exceptional team that has consistently delivered first-pass success on every ASIC we’ve developed for Meta’s infrastructure, all running at Meta’s scale serving billions of users every day.

You’ve worked at Nvidia, Qualcomm, and now Meta. Looking back to the start of your career versus today, which developments have surprised or impressed you most?

I started my career during the PC boom, when the semiconductor industry focused on PCs and networking, followed by the revolution around mobile devices. Over time, I’ve witnessed a seismic shift with hyperscalers like Meta and Google dominating the space and building custom ASICs for data centers. Today, I’m impressed by the advancements in AI/ML ASICs, which are driving several cutting-edge technologies in advanced packaging and silicon photonics. These custom chips are accelerating AI and ML workloads, improving efficiency, and enabling scalable data center designs. I believe this trend will continue to shape the future of the semiconductor industry.

What most excites you about the future of internet infrastructure whether technologically or otherwise?

The future of internet infrastructure will be exciting due to advancements in areas such as AI/ML as well as Edge and Quantum computing. AI and ML will continue to transform industries through automation, predictive analytics, and personalized experiences. This will increase user engagement which will continue to drive the need for infrastructure advancements. Similarly, Edge computing is critical for real time processing and Quantum computing will revolutionize the next wave of problem solving in many fields.

This will be your first time attending CloudFest! What are you most looking forward to about the event this year in Miami?

I am looking forward to meeting other industry leaders and learning about the latest on AI in hosting, edge computing, security and infrastructure strategies.

You will be on stage as part of a panel at this year’s event. Putting on your moderator hat, if you could program your own fireside chat with one person currently working in the industry, who would it be and why?

Given my semiconductor background, it would be Jensen Huang, Nvidia’s CEO. I have graduated from Nvidia University, and much before this AI revolution, I witnessed firsthand his vision for building high-performance GPUs even though the market wasn’t ready for them. I’ve been fortunate to apply a similar philosophy at Meta, where our leadership has backed me in taking bold steps to push the technology limits to build best possible AIML ASICs and lead in the AI silicon space. We were also able to foster a culture of experimentation and learning, enabling us to stay competitive in this rapidly evolving landscape.

Now let’s dream big. If you could program a fireside chat with any person, dead or alive, who is not currently working in this industry, who would it be and why?

It would be Steve Jobs. His focus on user experience transformed how people interact with technology. He revolutionized mobile phones and personal computing, which led to a massive shift in this industry.