Julien Simon

Julien Simon

Chief Evangelist @ Arcee AI

Championing open-source Small Language Models over opaque black box alternatives. Research-fluent expert making AI transparent, accessible, and controllable for enterprise deployment.

About

Julien Simon bridges the gap between AI research and enterprise reality. While many experts choose either academic research or practical implementation, Julien deliberately combines both. He reads research papers, decrypts the mathematical foundations behind breakthrough methods, and obsesses over translating them into shareable knowledge and solutions that actually work at scale.

With over 30 years of technology experience at AWS, Hugging Face, Criteo, and other major companies, Julien has built and scaled software engineering teams, architected enterprise solutions, and helped Fortune 500 organizations deliver measurable business value. His approach combines deep technical understanding with executive leadership, empowering enterprises to achieve superior AI outcomes while maintaining security and cost efficiency.

Julien's career reflects continuous learning across computing's evolution, always grounded in first principles. He's adapted from MySQL web platforms to Generative AI, from programming Motorola 68k processors to optimizing modern AI accelerators, from real-time operating systems to cloud-native architectures. Through every technology shift, he maintains a rigorous approach to building from sound fundamentals. Each new domain becomes an opportunity to learn, adapt, write code, and apply fresh concepts while staying grounded in fundamental engineering practices.

Julien's mission? To demystify buzzwords and cut through industry hype to focus on what actually works in production.

Latest Updates

📝 AI Regulation or AI Requiem?

Analyzing the diverging approaches to AI regulation in Europe and the US.

📝 Deploy Arcee AFM-4.5B on Arm-based AWS Graviton4 with Llama.cpp (Arm Learning Path)

Deploying the Arcee AFM-4.5B foundation model on Arm-based CPU instances.

🎤 Trying to figure out MCP by actually building an app from scratch with open source and SLMs

MCP Conference, London Building MCP applications from scratch using open source tools and Small Language Models.

📺 SLM Inference on Windows Laptop: Intel Lunar Lake CPU/GPU/NPU + OpenVINO

Deploying an Arcee SLM on an Intel Lunar Lake laptop using CPU, GPU, and NPU acceleration with OpenVINO.

Industry Impact & Recognition

Julien's approach to AI—combining theoretical depth with practical results—has earned recognition across the global tech community. His work spans 650+ speaking engagements, 350+ technical publications, and leadership roles at the world's most influential AI platforms. The numbers tell the story, but the real impact lies in making sophisticated AI accessible to enterprises worldwide.

350+
Technical Posts
650+
Speaking Engagements
400K+
YouTube Subscribers
30+
Years Experience

🎯 Small Models, Big Results

Champion Small Language Models that deliver enterprise-grade performance with significantly lower computational requirements than massive alternatives.

🔒 Privacy-First Architecture

Design AI solutions for on-premises and private cloud deployment, ensuring enterprises maintain complete control over their data and AI processes.

📈 Enterprise-Scale Implementation

Build AI strategies that grow with business needs—from proof-of-concept to company-wide deployment—without requiring infrastructure overhauls.

🔍 Transparency Over Black Boxes

Champion open-weights models that enterprises can inspect, understand, and control, rather than opaque black box LLMs that obscure their decision-making processes.

Recognition & Milestones

  • First Published Book on Amazon SageMaker (2019) - "Learn Amazon SageMaker" became the industry standard reference
  • AI Magazine #1 AI Evangelist (2021) - Ranked as the leading AI evangelist alongside luminaries like Andrew Ng
  • AWS Level 8 Promotion (2021) - Extremely rare achievement equivalent to Director level for individual contributors
  • Arm Ambassador (2025) - Recognized for expertise in AI inference optimization on Arm platforms

Expertise & Leadership Impact

🧠 AI & Machine Learning Leadership

Leading global advocate for Small Language Models and practical AI deployment. Executive experience scaling AI/ML teams at AWS, Hugging Face, and multiple Fortune 500 companies.

☁️ Enterprise AI Strategy

Proven track record helping enterprises implement cost-effective AI solutions. Deep expertise in cloud-native AI deployment and enterprise architecture.

🎤 Global Thought Leadership

650+ speaking engagements worldwide, including major industry events, developer conferences, Fortune 500 companies, and prestigious institutions like UNESCO, World Bank, New York Federal Reserve, and sovereign funds. Regular media appearances and executive consulting.

🎓 Knowledge Authority

Published author, YouTube creator with 400k+ subscribers, and recognized industry expert. Committed to democratizing AI knowledge globally.

Contact

For consulting, speaking engagements, executive roles, advisory positions, or AI partnerships:

Email: julien@julien.org