[dustintrex]

Perhaps we're talking about different sets of people? You seem to be describing the people who build ML systems, while the previous poster was talking about the people who use them. Your average data scientist most definitely does not have (or, really, even need to have) deep hardware knowledge or any understanding of networking.

[gonab]

I personally consider the term "data scientist" a very successful creation by a clever marketer

It's sexy and most of the times ...