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Matthew Shaxted of Parallel Works On Pushing the Boundaries of AI
Matthew Shaxted
Founder & CEO
7 min read
Matthew Shaxted
Founder & CEO
Parallel Works CEO Matthew Shaxted sits down with Authority Magazine to discuss the company's journey from HPC infrastructure to hybrid AI orchestration, the convergence of HPC and AI, and what it takes to shape the future of AI.
"Seeing AI software move from concept to real-world impact reinforced why we do this work in the first place."
This article was originally published in Authority Magazine.
Artificial intelligence is transforming industries rapidly, and entrepreneurs driving this innovation shape AI's future. Matthew Shaxted, Founder and CEO of Parallel Works, leads the company's mission to make high-performance and AI computing accessible. Since co-founding in June 2015, he has evolved the platform from pure HPC infrastructure into a hybrid orchestration system converging AI, ML, and simulation workloads across cloud, on-premises, and SaaS environments. Shaxted brings civil engineering and computational design expertise from firms including SOM.
Can you tell us about your childhood backstory and how you grew up?
Shaxted describes himself as a focused child interested in building things. His grandfather was an architect, initially influencing his career direction. He studied civil engineering at Northwestern University with an architectural concentration, learning to view buildings as systems rather than mere structures. During college, he began coding, opening new possibilities. After graduating, he worked at leading architecture and engineering firms including Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, focusing on sustainability and simulation for major projects like Chicago skyscrapers.
Running increasingly complex simulations on larger systems naturally led him into high-performance computing about fifteen years ago. This path eventually took him to Argonne National Laboratory, where he met his co-founder Mike.
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since beginning your career?
Working with large organizations like Unilever and View Glass proved formative. Navigating government agencies felt "like finding your way through a dark maze without a flashlight," learning systems, cultures, and security requirements continuously. The company secured a major government contract in 2022, and only recently became fully immersed in that ecosystem's compliance demands.
Early company years involved mostly customized engagements. One example was working with Jacobs Engineering on a flood-warning platform, traveling regularly to the UK to ensure precise delivery. Over time, patterns from these projects converged, eventually forming the current software platform. Shaxted bootstrapped the entire company without institutional financing or early boards, figuring matters out progressively.
Is there a particular person who helped get you where you are?
Co-founder Mike proved instrumental, introducing Shaxted to the HPC world and its community over more than a decade of partnership. Mike taught both technical aspects and entrepreneurial thinking within technical domains.
Shaxted is also grateful for advisory board members, particularly Andy Lombard from Tesoro Ventures, who served as a constant strategic sounding board. Growing up surrounded by technology, both professionally and personally, provided invaluable support.
What is your favorite life lesson quote?
"Creation is a better means of self-expression than possession; it is through creating, not possessing, that life is revealed." — Vida D. Scudder
This resonates because creating things has always been how Shaxted understands himself and stays engaged. Building companies, products, and teams proved consistently more fulfilling than outcomes tied to status, money, or ownership. Creation provides energy and clarity through continuous learning, iteration, and shaping something previously nonexistent.
Which three character traits were most instrumental to your success?
Persistence: Building a bootstrapped company requires not surrendering despite slow or uncertain progress.
Unbridled Optimism: Deeply believing in your work before market validation arrives. This optimism sustains forward momentum when external validation remains absent.
People-First Mindset: Intentionally surrounding yourself with mission-believing, long-term committed individuals. Shaxted genuinely loves this space — the technology, problem-solving, and impact. He continues testing products, conversing with customers, and understanding how work supports meaningful outcomes in science and human health.
What inspired you to start working with AI?
About four years ago, Parallel Works won a Department of Energy grant exploring machine-learning-based modeling while focusing on traditional modeling and simulation with Argonne.
Over the last two years, the landscape changed dramatically. AI exploded, and HPC became modern AI systems' underpinning infrastructure. Core requirements — networking, storage, and scheduling — remained fundamentally similar. This expertise positioned the company perfectly for transition.
As AI workloads evolved, the company shifted toward Kubernetes, adapted to new hardware ecosystems, and leaned into private LLMs, air-gapped environments, and GPU-intensive workloads requiring specialized drivers and rapid scaling. HPC and AI convergence now defines their reality.
When did AI achieve something you once thought impossible?
The breakthrough wasn't a single technical milestone but market validation. While building advanced technology matters, customers paying for and deploying it in real-world scenarios represents something fundamentally different.
Recently, growing customer numbers adopted the platform specifically for AI workloads — capabilities built over two years. This validation confirmed the outlined vision wasn't just technically sound but genuinely valuable.
Current platform applications include next-generation hurricane risk modeling, radiology and genomics workloads supporting cancer research, and hypersonic missile detection. "Seeing AI software move from concept to real-world impact reinforced why we do this work."
What challenge did you face when working with AI? How did you overcome it?
AI represents one of the fastest-moving technology landscapes. New hardware, storage systems, network topologies, and software frameworks emerge constantly. Orchestration and cluster management continuously evolve, demanding relentless adaptation for relevance.
The company addressed this through diligent ecosystem monitoring and quick adjustment. Rather than locking into single approaches, they built platform flexibility enabling adaptation as technology evolves. This continuous learning and rapid evolution mindset proved critical for competitiveness.
Based on your experience, what are five things needed to help shape AI's future?
Early career experiences showed teams with strong models failing because underlying systems couldn't scale, interoperate, or adapt. AI progress depends on compute, data movement, orchestration, and reliability. Ignoring infrastructure creates fragile systems unable to survive beyond labs.
AI systems operate with latency limits, cost ceilings, regulatory boundaries, and imperfect data. Projects stalled when they optimized benchmark performance instead of operational reality. Future AI belongs to systems working under constraints, not ideal conditions.
In high-consequence environments, fully autonomous systems prove less trustworthy than human-in-the-loop designs. Users needed transparency and control, not black boxes. "AI should augment decision-making, not obscure it."
Ecosystems evolve faster than any single vendor or model. Organizations struggled committing too early to closed systems. Open, composable architectures allow AI solutions evolving as technology and requirements change.
Ethics, governance, and security require initial design inclusion. Retrofitting controls after deployment proves difficult and costly. Future AI teams treat responsibility as core engineering requirements, not policy afterthoughts.
What advice would you give other entrepreneurs innovating in AI?
Focus relentlessly on delivering deep, immediate value. Solve real problems people have today — not hypothetical problems five years forward.
This proves especially important for bootstrapped companies without institutional funding. Without hype-chasing luxury, you need clearly understanding pain points, their importance, and customer payment willingness now. That focus proved essential for survival and growth.
Is there someone you'd like to have breakfast or lunch with?
Satya Nadella — he orchestrated one of modern tech's most successful cultural and strategic transformations. Shaxted would explore his thinking regarding leadership humility, platform thinking, and responsible AI deployment at massive scale.
Follow Matthew Shaxted on LinkedIn. Learn more at parallelworks.com.