Director of Hardware Architecture - Partner, Extreme Computing Group, Microsoft
Board Member and Treasurer, The Green Grid
A recognized leader in the industry, Christian Belady is the Director of Hardware Architecture in the Extreme Computing Group at Microsoft Research where he leads a team responsible for exploring hardware opportunities related to the future of client plus cloud computing. Prior to his current role, he was Microsoft’s Principal Infrastructure Architect for Global Foundation Services where his role was to improve both efficiency and cost in their online services infrastructure. His responsibilities included driving initiatives for sustainability in the data center and infrastructure space, and he was one of the key architects for the Generation 4 modular data centers.
Prior to joining Microsoft, Christian was a Distinguished Technologist for HP where his responsibilities included driving the technology direction in HP's server products and their environments, as well as driving industry data center initiatives. In addition, his earlier employers include Convex Computers (acquired by HP), TI and IBM.
With over 77 US patents and many international patents, Christian is an ASME and IMAPS Fellow and a founding member of ASHRAE's TC9.9, which is responsible for developing data center guidelines. He was one of the early architects of the Green Grid and currently the treasurer for the organization, and is an originator of the Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) metric used to determine the energy efficiency of a data center which is now broadly used by the industry. He also works closely with government agencies globally to define efficiency metrics for data centers and servers.
Christian has published several dozen papers, is frequently quoted in the press, and is a featured speaker on power and cooling trends in the industry. Since the late 1990s, the focus of his publications has been on data centers and the industry’s need for engineering efficient computing environments. Christian holds engineering degrees from Cornell University (BS) and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (MS) and a business degree from the University of Texas at Dallas (MA) where he was honored with the 2010 Distinguished Alumni Award.