Ken Patchett

VP of Data Center Infrastructure, Lambda

Focusing exclusively on AI and ML workloads, Lambda is a specialized superintelligence cloud company that builds modular AI factories—power, specialized cooling, and high-bandwidth interconnection, while delivering high-performance and cost-competitive GPU infrastructure, with dynamic resource allocation and a simpler experience than traditional hyperscale clouds.

What criteria do you look for when evaluating data center providers?

When we choose data center partners, we are making a values decision as much as a technical one. The data center of yesterday will not support the data center of tomorrow, and pretending otherwise is one of the biggest risks in AI infrastructure today.

We are deploying some of the most advanced chips and tightly coupled computing systems ever built. These platforms push power density, thermal limits, and physical design far beyond what traditional enterprise and even early hyperscale data centers were designed to handle. You cannot put world-class AI systems into facilities built for a different era and expect world-class outcomes.

AI infrastructure is not something you simply drop into a generic building. Facilities must be purpose-built, forward-looking, and engineered with intent. If a provider still believes square footage and Tier ratings define quality, they are already behind.

We evaluate partners through an AI-first engineering lens. Power density and scalable delivery are foundational. If a site cannot support sustained high-density deployments and scale power in clean, modular increments, it is not an AI platform; it is a constraint. Cooling must be real, not theoretical. Direct-to-chip liquid cooling is not the next generation; it is the current generation. Lambda is actively working on developing sites with those capabilities and we look for providers now that offer it and have a proven experience running specialized cooling solutions at scale.

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ABOUT KEN PATCHETT

Ken Patchett has over two decades of experience leading transformative data center operations and infrastructure programs. Across leadership roles at Facebook, Microsoft, Google, Amazon, and Oracle, he has built and scaled some of the most demanding hyperscale computing environments in the world. As Vice President of Data Center Infrastructure at Lambda, Patchett is now shaping the vision for the next generation of AI-optimized data center infrastructure.