You Won’t Be Replaced by AI — You’ll Be Replaced by the Person Using It | Techstrong Gang
The tech stack is being reshuffled in real time, and SUSECON 2026 is giving the industry a front-row seat to what comes next.
On Day 3 of our live coverage from SUSECON 2026, Alan Shimel and Mike Vizard are joined by Stephen Dickens of HyperFrame Research and Christine Puccio of SUSE to unpack the biggest storylines shaping the week. The conversation tackles sovereign AI, the evolution of the partner ecosystem, the ongoing VMware/Broadcom fallout and what all of it means for platform engineers, SREs and VMware admins now being forced to rethink the future of the stack.
The discussion also zeroes in on a striking message from SUSE CTO Dr. Thomas Di Giacomo, who warned that IT leaders are “one executive order away from becoming a hostage.” From infrastructure sovereignty and open source strategy to AI factories and the operational reality of deploying AI in production, this episode explores why control, flexibility and resilience are suddenly becoming non-negotiable.
As enterprises try to navigate geopolitical pressure, vendor concentration and the demands of production-ready AI, this Day 3 conversation captures the urgency and complexity defining SUSECON 2026.
