# machine61
> Engineering and strategic advisory delivering mission-critical data, machine learning, AI, quantum computing, and embedded systems for defense, insurance, legal, and manufacturing.

Last updated: 2026-02-05T15:00:00+00:00

For comprehensive details, see: https://www.machine61.net/llms-full.txt

## About
machine61 LLC is a veteran-owned engineering and strategic advisory firm based in and around the greater New York City metro area. We build and deploy next-generation systems at any scale, including petabyte and exabyte data platforms, machine learning and AI business systems, and embedded devices and software running in austere, hostile environments. We work with organizations where failure isn't an option.

## What We Do
- **Fractional CxO Services**: Senior, successful, fractional Chief AI Officer (CAIO), Chief Innovation Officer (CINO), and other CxO services on demand for all size firms.
- **Data & AI**: Enterprise-scale data architecture, integration, machine learning, analytics, and AI implementation. AI readiness and/or adoption assessments. Petabyte and exabyte data systems. Data strategy, data quality, and data products. Data warehousing.
- **Quantum Computing**: Quantum readiness and/or adoption assessments, post-quantum cryptography migration, signal processing, and early adoption strategies for defense and commercial applications.
- **Embedded & IoT**: Real-time embedded software and firmware, safety-critical systems (DO-178C, MIL-STD), low-power devices for austere environments.
- **Robotics & Autonomous Systems**: Swarm coordination, unmanned platforms, human-machine teaming, edge AI.

## What We Don't Do
Staff augmentation, generic IT support, basic web development, Wordpress, Shopify, Drupal, Ruby on Rails, SEO, or recruiting.

## Assessments
Structured assessments with standardized deliverables (scorecards, executive brief, full report, visual deck). Big consulting rigor. Startup speed. https://www.machine61.net/assessments.html
- **Combined Strategy, Data, AI, and New Technologies Assessment**: Business strategy, innovation portfolio, data, ML, AI, automation, and emerging tech like quantum—separating what's real now from what's worth watching. Includes high-value use case discovery and PoC/solution roadmapping.
- **Data and AI Assessment**: Data strategy, ML, AI, and automation focus. Includes use case discovery and roadmapping.
- **Current State Assessment**: Process documentation, systems inventory, and capability mapping. Baseline assessment without forward-looking elements.

## Industries
### Defense
Systems for hostile, denied, and austere environments. Embedded software, secure data architectures, quantum readiness, and autonomous systems. We build systems that work when nothing else does.

### Insurance
Underwriting and risk assessment, claims automation, fraud detection, document intelligence, customer experience, and regulatory compliance. We integrate and unify data, streamline processes, and bring intelligence to legacy systems.

### Legal
Data strategy and integration for law firms. Document review and eDiscovery at ~1,000+ pages per hour with ~95%+ accuracy. Contract analysis and due diligence that reduces ~200 hours to ~2 hours with attorney review. Legal research that surfaces controlling authority, identifies circuit splits, and flags superseded precedents. Client communication and workflow automation with 24/7 portals. IP claims drafting across multiple dependency chains. Prior art search across patents, publications, foreign filings, and non-patent literature. AI that lets lawyers practice law instead of pushing paper.

### Manufacturing
Data strategy and OT/IT integration from PLC to executive dashboard. Quality and defect prevention using real-time sensor data. Root cause analysis across production data, maintenance logs, and quality records. Predictive maintenance that predicts failures ~2-4 weeks in advance. Production planning and optimization. Supply chain analysis including BOM optimization, standardization opportunities, obsolescence risk flagging, and single-source identification. Regulatory compliance checking against ISO, AS9100, FDA. We connect the shop floor to the C-suite.

## Thought Leadership
### Innovation
Chief Innovation Officer role and responsibilities. Fractional CINO leadership model. Innovation portfolio management and emerging technology evaluation.

### Artificial Intelligence
Chief AI Officer role and responsibilities. Fractional CAIO leadership model. AI readiness assessment and strategic roadmapping. AI applications in the legal industry. AI doesn't replace lawyers—it lets them practice law.

### Data Strategy
How to build data strategies for insurance, law firms, and manufacturing. Data strategy and integration with data mesh architectures for defense, insurance, legal, and manufacturing. Data products as the foundation for effective AI in insurance.

### Quantum Computing
Quantum hardware landscape (superconducting, trapped ion, photonic). Quantum annealers explained and their applications. Formulating business problems as QUBOs. Gate-based quantum computing on Azure with Python. Fluxonium and D-Wave's on-chip cryogenic control breakthrough. Primers on qubits, qudits, quantum entanglement, quantum superposition, and quantum circuits. Quantum machine learning fundamentals.

### Business, World & Military Strategy
Geopolitical perception and information warfare. Arctic strategy analysis. Analysis of global manufacturing trends, naval strategy, and geopolitical implications for technology and defense.

## Team
- **Sal Magnone** – Co-founder, Senior Advisor. Veteran. 30+ years engineering experience. Co-founded companies in ML/insurance and defense embedded systems. Former PwC, Sia Partners, Gigaspaces, US Army. Links: https://www.linkedin.com/in/salmagnone/ | https://substack.com/@salexmachina
- **Meiling Zhang** – Co-founder, Senior Advisor. Founder of a quantum computing company focused on defense signal processing. Former IBM, Angry Robot Labs, lab347. Links: https://www.linkedin.com/in/zhangexmachina/ | https://zhangexmachina.substack.com/
- **Nicole Tedesco** – Robotics SME. Former Boeing Phantom Works, Microsoft, ARCA. Expert in robotics deployment and robotics-as-a-service.
- **Alex Cone** – Mobile Applications SME. Former NASA (Space Shuttle program), NeXT, Apple (iTunes Store). Speaker on enterprise mobile development and security.
- **Matt Weinstein** – High-Performance Computing SME. Former Ab Initio, Activision, [x+1]. Expert in high-performance, low-latency and distributed systems.

## Clients
Fincantieri, AIG, Voya Financial, Valley Bank, SS&C Intralinks, Invidi Technologies, Medici, Namakina, Friended.

## Key Case Studies & Outcomes
- [Fincantieri](https://www.fincantieri.com): **Defense** Designed, developed, and deployed high-value defense-specific embedded software on applicable milspec hardware for use in harsh, austere, zero-failure conditions.
- [Voya Financial](https://voya.com): **Insurance** **Insurance** Delivered an enterprise data platform desiloing and integrating all of Voya's legacy mainframe data, deployed across three mainframe instances, into a single data lake and data warehouse platform. Oversaw all data mapping, schema creation, planning, and coordination with a combined team of about 100.
- [Valley Bank](https://www.valley.com): **Insurance** **Banking** Designed and deployed Valley's Master Data Management (MDM) and Reference Data architecture and systems; mapped their legacy mainframe and transactional data to the new MDM system's data schema.
- [SS&C Intralinks](https://www.intralinks.com): **Insurance** **Virtual Data Rooms** Successfully designed and deployed Intralinks' first large-scale analytics offering, specifically for managing complex, long-running Pharmaceutical trials. System ran on Oracle Exadata.
- [AIG](https://www.AIG.com): **Insurance** Architected an underwriting system including the entire underwriting ingestion pipeline and the associated machine learning algorithms and data storage strategy.
- [Thumb](https://theamericangenius.com/thumb-social-network-instant-opinions/): **Social Media** **Startup** Designed and rolled out web-scale data analytics including ETL, optimized Vertica database columnar schemas, and Vertica database instance deployment.
- [Friended](https://www.friended.com/): **AI** **Social Media** **Startup** Strategic business advisory, data science research including short message/conversation sentiment analysis, topic modeling, and data quality at scale.
- [Namakina](https://www.namakina.com/): **AI** **Health & Wellness** **Startup** Strategic business advisory. Helped define strategic and competitive positioning.
- [Medici.ai](https://www.medici.ai/): **AI** **FinTech** **Startup** **Crypto** Strategic business advisory and data architecture design.
- [DOOR3](https://www.door3.com): **Software Development** Strategic business advisory, responsible for strategic pivot in client and competitive strategy. Launched and led DOOR3 Labs, a sub-organization tasked with designing and building advanced architectures for AI, machine learning, and data integration.

## Resources
Frameworks, guides, and executive briefings: https://www.machine61.net/resources/
- **Getting the Most Out of Your Fractional CAIO** (PDF) by Salvatore Magnone — Practical guide for organizations working with fractional Chief AI Officers. Covers setting expectations, providing access, handling uncomfortable findings, and building internal capability. Tags: ai, leadership, fractional
- **Advanced Technology Advisory Services** (PDF) by Salvatore Magnone — Overview of data, machine learning, AI, quantum, IoT, and robotics advisory capabilities. Tags: service description
- **Intelligent Document Processing (IDP)** (PDF) by Salvatore Magnone — Framework for implementing IDP for legal, insurance, and document-heavy industries. Tags: technology, legal, insurance
- **Bulletproof: Machine61 Field Guides** (PDF) by Salvatore Magnone and Meiling Zhang — Three field guides: real-time systems, peta/exabyte scale, IoT in austere environments. Tags: technology, data, ai, iot, quantum, real-time
- **Strategy, A Primer** (PDF) by Salvatore Magnone — Strategy primer with insights from Porter, Drucker, von Clausewitz, and Yogi Berra. Tags: strategy, education

## Contact
- **Email**: start@machine61.net
- **Website**: https://www.machine61.net
- **LinkedIn**: https://www.linkedin.com/company/machine61/

## Location
New York City, NY, USA