Thomas Harrer is Chief Technology Officer for IBM Systems Hardware Sales in Europe. He drives emerging workloads on IBM infrastructure for clients across Europe. He is an advocate known for his forward thinking and leadership in infrastructures for mission-critical and cloud-native workloads. He sees a strong future in industry-specific cognitive and hybrid cloud solutions based on data, the differentiating resource of the AI era. As a vice-chairman and chairman of the TEC central, the IBM Academy of Technology affiliate for DACH, Thomas influenced and led the technical community in DACH between 2009 and 2013. Since then, he has fostered networking and growth for technical leaders and talents.