From AI Demo to Production Systems You Can Trust

Most AI strategies look good in a demo. The real challenge is getting them to run at scale.

Recorded live at NVIDIA GTC 2026, this episode with Ragu Chakravarthi from Core42 and Kraig Ecker from WWT explores what it actually takes to move from AI pilots to production systems.

They discuss sovereign AI as critical infrastructure, what control really means across data and operations, and why trust has to be built into every layer. From governance and observability to regulated environments, this is what it takes to run AI in the real world.

The conversation also looks ahead to agentic AI, rising token demand, and the growing need for traceability and access control.

If you are working to operationalize AI at scale, this episode breaks down what most teams underestimate.

Support for this episode provided by: Forescout

More about this week's guests:

Ragu Chakravarthi is Chief Technology and Product Officer at Core42, leading AI infrastructure, platforms, and operations. He oversees large-scale AI cloud deployments across NVIDIA, AMD, and Cerebras, and has driven innovations like Compass and JAIS. His work focuses on enabling secure, scalable AI adoption, with emphasis on sovereignty, performance, and enterprise readiness.

Kraig Ecker is EVP of Global Service Provider Sales at WWT, leading teams that help the world’s largest telecom and hyperscale companies adopt next-generation technologies. With deep industry relationships, he has driven growth across AI, 5G, cloud, and edge, expanded WWT into new markets, and helped establish the company as a leading partner across the global service provider ecosystem.

The AI Proving Ground Podcast leverages the deep AI technical and business expertise from within World Wide Technology's one-of-a-kind AI Proving Ground, which provides unrivaled access to the world's leading AI technologies. This unique lab environment accelerates your ability to learn about, test, train and implement AI solutions.

Learn more about WWT's AI Proving Ground.

The AI Proving Ground is a composable lab environment that features the latest high-performance infrastructure and reference architectures from the world's leading AI companies, such as NVIDIA, Cisco, Dell, F5, AMD, Intel and others.

Developed within our Advanced Technology Center (ATC), this one-of-a-kind lab environment empowers IT teams to evaluate and test AI infrastructure, software and solutions for efficacy, scalability and flexibility — all under one roof. The AI Proving Ground provides visibility into data flows across the entire development pipeline, enabling more informed decision-making while safeguarding production environments.