AI factories are changing what research computing looks like as HPC and AI converge around increasingly powerful, data-hungry infrastructure. HPC industry veteran and current head of the charge for research and education in the Americas at VAST, Chris Ginder, joins us to discuss how research institutions are approaching shared AI infrastructure, why GPUs alone don’t define an AI factory, and the storage, networking and data architecture required to keep those systems productive. The conversation explores what this shift means for traditional HPC environments and, ultimately, how researchers can turn massive compute capability into useful scientific work.