Profile & Expertise
Michael McFarland
AI Consultant
About Me
I'm an independent consultant specializing in AI data center networking and applied AI solutions. With over 20 years of experience working in networking across WAN, LAN, wireless, hyperscale infrastructure, telecom, and enterprise environments, I bring both strategic perspective and hands-on technical depth to every engagement.
My work spans two interconnected disciplines: designing and optimizing the high-speed networks that power AI training and inference workloads, and building intelligent software solutions that embed AI into organizational workflows to drive efficiency and better outcomes.
I've worked with a variety of organizations to modernize their AI infrastructure and develop custom tooling that puts the power of large language models and machine learning directly into the hands of their teams.
Finally, and most importantly, I use my product management and marketing background to make sure companies don't develop technology solutions for technology's sake. I help clients prioritize their desired AI projects and ensure my technical deliverables map directly to the client's desired business outcomes.
Areas of Expertise
AI Fabric Networks
- InfiniBand (HDR/NDR) & RoCEv2 / RDMA
- Multi-rail GPU-to-GPU interconnects
- Fat-tree, dragonfly & rail-optimized topologies
- BGP-based EVPN overlays, VXLAN / SR underlays
Applied AI Development
- LLM integration & prompt engineering
- AI workflow automation
- RAG systems & knowledge bases
- Custom AI agents & tooling
Network Management & Tooling
- UFM / OpenSM / Subnet managers
- Network telemetry & observability
- Congestion control tuning
- Automated provisioning pipelines
Infrastructure & Platforms
- NVIDIA DGX / HGX systems
- GPU cluster design
- Cloud AI platforms (AWS, Azure, GCP)
- On-premise AI infrastructure
Education & Certifications
My academic foundation combines rigorous engineering training with graduate-level business strategy — giving me the unusual ability to translate deep technical work into clear business value.
Bachelor of Science, Mechanical Engineering
Northwestern University
MBA — Strategy, Marketing & Statistics
Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University