Keynote Interview: OpenAI on Building at Planetary Scale | Jonathan Lee | Azure Cosmos DB Conf 2026

Jonathan Lee from OpenAI's online storage team joins Kirill Gavrylyuk at Azure Cosmos DB Conf 2026 to talk about what it takes for a database to keep up with OpenAI. Inside this clip from the keynote: • Why "design a normal database and scale it out" breaks at OpenAI's velocity • Running thousands of product tables on Azure Cosmos DB • A schema-less design layer in front of Cosmos to onboard new use cases fast • Multi-region replication across dozens of regions for fault isolation • Tiered accounts — globally replicated metadata vs. regional workloads • Transparently migrating collections between Cosmos DB accounts as products grow 👤 Connect with Jonathan Lee 📝 Jonathan Lee is a Member of Technical Staff at OpenAI, working on the infrastructure and systems that power OpenAI's frontier AI models. 💼 https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonathan-lee-78824166/ 🎤 https://developer.azurecosmosdb.com/conf/#speaker/jonathan-lee 👤 Connect with Kirill Gavrylyuk 📝 Kirill Gavrylyuk is Vice President for Azure Cosmos DB at Microsoft, leading product and engineering since the Cosmos DB launch in 2017. 💼 https://www.linkedin.com/in/kirillgavrylyuk/ 🎤 https://developer.azurecosmosdb.com/conf/#speaker/kirill-gavrylyuk --- Azure Cosmos DB Conf 2026 is a free virtual developer event focused on building modern, scalable applications with Azure Cosmos DB. Sessions feature Microsoft engineers, product teams, and members of the global developer community sharing real-world solutions and best practices. Originally streamed on April 28, 2026 | 9:00 AM – 2:00 PM PT 🔗 Useful Links • Watch the full keynote — https://aka.ms/CosmosConf26Keynote • Explore all sessions on-demand — https://aka.ms/CosmosConf26Playlist • Take the Cosmos Conf Challenge. First 500 to complete gets a voucher for 100% free certificate exam for DP-420 — https://aka.ms/CosmosDBConfChallenge • Azure DB Cosmos Conference 2026 Post-Event Survey — https://aka.ms/CosmosConf2026Survey • Visit the conference website — ht