Brad Baker

Brad began his career in mechanical engineering, working on sonar systems at General Dynamics. There, he honed his skills in coding, testing new technologies, and eventually transitioned into a role as a business development systems engineer. Later, Brad joined NetApp as a Systems Engineer, supporting several civilian agencies, and then moved into an Account Executive role. Throughout his career, he maintained a strong customer-first perspective and a passion for tackling complex technical challenges. His next step was a position at a VAR, where he specialized in building multi-OEM solutions. Driven by his vision to create a new kind of VAR with top talent, Brad’s goal became a reality when he teamed up with the other founders of CTG Federal.

Brad lives in Driftwood, TX, just outside Austin, where he starts each day with a cold plunge by the pool (and maybe a little bragging about it). As CTO of CTG, he occasionally answers calls, fires off emails, and hops on planes to talk tech and business. A dirt bike enthusiast, he’s traveled to amazing places worldwide to ride, but lately, his adventures mostly involve being the backup chauffeur for his two busy kids, a duty he shares with his wonderful wife, Apollina. They homeschool the kids, so if you’re on a video call with Brad, there’s a good chance one of them might make a surprise appearance.

 

Presentation Title:

Bridging the Gap: Evolving U.S. Government Supercomputing Strategies in the Hyperscaler Era

Presentation Abstract:

Over the past four decades, government-led supercomputing pioneered innovations from early vector machines through massively parallel processors, the largest SMPs, Beowulf clusters, and onto accelerator-based designs that enabled the largest exa-scale systems ever built. These efforts demonstrated the capability of public institutions to push technological boundaries with their industrial partners.

However, in the last decade, the landscape has shifted dramatically. The commercial hyperscale industry is reshaping high-performance computing and investing at unprecedented scales, vertically integrating designs, and creating cloud-native architectures that dominate AI, machine learning, and large-scale data analytics. This shift has left the government increasingly marginalized and dependent on commercial cloud solutions and ultimately lacking access to some of the most advanced technologies needed to develop and manage similar environments for itself.

This talk examines the evolution of supercomputing as viewed by the speaker when working at NASA alongside the rise of hyperscalers, identifies the structural and strategic differences between these two worlds, and proposes a potential path forward.