Sign In

Donald Thompson

Distinguished Engineer @ Microsoft / LinkedIn | Agentic AI

Donald Thompson is a highly experienced and hands-on technical architect and CTO with over 35 years of expertise in designing and delivering large-scale software and services.

Currently serving as a Distinguished Engineer at LinkedIn, Donald is spearheading generative AI technology strategy and architecture, contributing significantly to innovative developments in the field.

As a co-founder of Maana, which was acquired by SparkCognition, Donald played a pivotal role in pioneering computational knowledge graphs and visual no-code/low-code authoring environments to assist leading companies in their AI-based digital transformation endeavors.

At Microsoft, he founded the Knowledge and Reasoning group within Bing, where he led the creation of groundbreaking technologies like 'Satori', an internet-scale knowledge graph, ingestion and analysis pipeline, and a distributed graph store.

During his tenure at Microsoft, Donald held various key roles including Director of Engineering, Principal Architect, and Founder, contributing to projects ranging from internet display ad delivery systems to semantic computing incubations funded by Bill Gates.

Prior to Microsoft, Donald's diverse experience included developing automated decisioning systems, cellular billing systems, and AI and 3D physics engines for video games, showcasing his versatility and proficiency across different domains.

With a Master of Science in Computer Science from the University of Oxford and a background in UCLA, Donald possesses a solid educational foundation to complement his extensive professional accomplishments.

Throughout his career, Donald has showcased his skills in areas such as software architecture, AI technology, computational knowledge graphs, no-code/low-code environments, internet-scale systems, distributed databases, and business strategy.

His leadership roles in prominent organizations like LinkedIn, Splunk, SparkCognition, and Microsoft demonstrate his ability to drive innovation, lead high-impact projects, and deliver tangible results consistently.

Donald's background encompasses a wide array of technological domains including robotics, wearable computing, privacy-preserving data services, analytics, inference, and more, underlining his comprehensive expertise and thought leadership in the tech industry.

Highlights

Aug 19 · linkedin

The digital transformation era held so much promise that never truly materialized to its fullest potential. However, if you spent time studying digital transformation, you’ll recognize signs telling us that a new chapter of enterprise transformation has begun: the cognitive era.

At this defining moment with AI, cognitive transformation signals a change in how businesses use technology to optimize outcomes and process. It is also reshaping the future of work, team structures, and the skills employees need to thrive.

If you are curious about the cognitive transformation era, AI and new ways we should all be thinking about work, check out my article in IT Pro Today:

https://lnkd.in/e9aieWT9

Jul 19 · linkedin

I'm thrilled to be a speaker at this year's 7th edition of the AI Hardware & Edge AI Summit, taking place from September 9-12 in San Jose, CA.

This is a great opportunity for members across the AI and ML ecosystem to collaborate and discuss the best ways to help organizations train, deploy and scale machine learning systems in fast, affordable, and efficient ways. With an impressive lineup of over 100 speakers and an anticipated attendance of 1,200, it promises to be an energetic atmosphere with much to learn and share.

If you're thinking about joining, you can use the code SPEAKER10 during checkout for a 10% discount: https://lnkd.in/eqq5AmtY

#AIHardware #EdgeAI #AIHardwareSummit #EdgeAISummit #AIConference #EdgeAIConference #AIEvent

Donald Thompson
Add to my network

Location

Redmond, Washington, United States