What Brendan Gregg thinks about data centers
Computer performance engineer working on datacenter performance at OpenAI, previously Netflix and Sun/Joyent. Author of Systems Performance and BPF Performance Tools, and creator of flame graphs.
Everything they publish, on ppll ↗
Brendan Gregg did not write this page.
We collected these quotes from things they published elsewhere, and every quote links to where it was said. They have no account here and have not endorsed this site. Quotes are word for word; the short line under each one is our own restatement, not their wording. Their own site. Is this you? Claim it or ask us to remove it. Or tell us what is wrong here.
3 dated positions, 2026, in their own words. Our reading of what Brendan Gregg has said — not written or endorsed by them.
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Their wordsThe staggering and fast-growing cost of AI datacenters is a call for performance engineering like no other in history; it's not just about saving costs - it's about saving the planet.
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Their wordsI've realized that performance engineering as we know it may not be enough - I'm thinking of new engineering methods so that we can find bigger optimizations than we have before, and find them faster.
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Their wordsgiven those technologies are proven for finding datacenter performance wins, it seems likely