David A. Chapa
David A. Chapa is a Chief AI Strategist focused on how memory, data movement, and system constraints shape modern AI infrastructure. His work centers on helping organizations move beyond AI experimentation and into real-world execution, where data access, latency, and orchestration determine whether systems actually work at scale.
With more than 30 years in data infrastructure, David has worked on both the end-user and manufacturer sides of the industry, covering data storage, data protection, and disaster recovery. He started his career in the trenches as a backup administrator before moving into the software and hardware vendor space in the late 90s with Cheyenne Software.
He later entered the industry analyst world as a Senior Analyst and General Manager for Data Protection at Enterprise Strategy Group, where he evaluated technologies, market direction, and vendor strategies across the broader ecosystem. That experience added another dimension to his perspective, not just building and selling systems, but understanding how the market evolves and where it breaks.
That progression, from hands-on operations to market analysis to enterprise strategy, continues to shape how he approaches today’s AI challenges.
Over time, his focus has shifted from protecting data to understanding how it moves, how memory is accessed, and how those factors impact performance in real systems. His work reflects a broader view that the next limiting factor in AI is no longer compute, but how efficiently data moves and how close it is to where compute happens.
David creates content that helps technical and business audiences make sense of these shifts, translating complex architectural concepts into practical insight. He is a sought-after speaker and writer known for connecting real system behavior to broader market direction. Over the course of his career, he has written thousands of blogs, articles, white papers, and technical briefs.
You may contact David here.