Choosing Between Open and Closed AI at TechCrunch Disrupt 2026

Nvidia’s Nader Khalil and Sydney Sykes will headline the Builders Stage from October 13-15 to navigate the trade-offs defining modern AI stacks. The session aims to move past the binary of open versus closed, focusing instead on the commercial realities that force companies to weigh data control against speed and deployment complexity.

Khalil, who leads developer technology at Nvidia and previously founded the infrastructure firm Brev.dev, approaches the topic through the lens of technical utility and environment flexibility. Sykes, as the company’s Global Head of VC Partnerships, provides the venture perspective, analyzing how these technical choices influence a startup’s scalability and investment potential. With the lines between model types blurring—exemplified by the rise of hybrid deployments—the discussion will address whether owning the stack creates actual defensibility or merely adds unnecessary maintenance overhead for growing teams.