News and Updates

PAI Seminar: ​Flexible Computing in Data Centers for Sustainable AI Growth

April 8th, 2025, 12:30 - 1:30 pm, SEC, Room 6.301 (RSVP), or Zoom (​Password: 927603)
Speaker Bio:  Prof. Ayse K. Coskun is a full professor at Boston University (BU) at the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department, where she leads the Performance and Energy Aware Computing Laboratory (PeacLab) to solve problems towards making computer systems more intelligent and energy-efficient. Coskun is also the Director of the Center for Information and Systems Engineering (CISE) at BU, a research center themed on intelligent systems. Coskun’s research interests intersect design automation, large-scale computer systems, and applied machine learning. Her research outcomes are culminated in several technical awards, including the IEEE CEDA Ernest Kuh Early Career Award, an IBM Faculty Award, and an IEEE TCAD Donald O. Pederson Best Paper Award. Coskun currently serves as the Deputy Editor-in-Chief of the IEEE Transactions on Computer Aided Design. Coskun is also the Chief Scientist at Emerald AI, a venture focused on implementing flexible computing at scale in real-world AI data centers. She received her PhD degree in Computer Engineering from University of California San Diego.

PAI Seminar: Enable Sustainable Datacenters by Virtualizing Energy Systems

December 3rd, 2024, 12:45 - 1:45pm, SEC, Room 5.403
Speaker Bio: Noman Bashir is the Computing & Climate Postdoctoral Impact Fellow at MIT Computer Science & Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) and MIT Climate & Sustainability Consortium (MCSC). Noman is a computer systems researcher focused on improving the sustainability of computing. His work pushes the boundaries of computer systems design and operation to address emerging challenges of rapidly rising computing demand, increasing electric grid constraints, and growing complexity in datacenters' local energy systems. He takes the requisite multidisciplinary approach that integrates domain-specific knowledge from energy systems and industrial ecology with advanced computer systems approaches to develop high-impact solutions at all layers of computer system stacks and all steps in their lifecycles. In manifesting real-world impact, his work has enhanced the resource efficiency of Google's datacenters and powered community testbeds for carbon-efficient applications. For more details, please visit his webpage at https://noman-bashir.github.io/.

PAI Talks: Fireside Chat with Robert Davidson

October 29th, 2024,12:15-1:00 pm, SEC, Room 3.314
Speaker Bio:  Robert Davidson is Vice President, Grid Reliability Projects and Planning of the Alberta Electric System Operator (AESO). Mr. Davidson has over 25 years of utility experience in the power industry, having previously worked with ENMAX Power Corporation, Primary Engineering and Construction, Dairyland Power Cooperative and the Mid-Continent Area Power Pool. Throughout his career, he has been involved in transmission and distribution planning, transmission and distribution customer connections, distribution design, system operations engineering, and regulatory and strategic business planning. Mr. Davidson holds a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering from North Dakota State University, a Bachelor of Arts in Mathematics from Jamestown College, and the designation of Professional Engineer with the Association of Professional Engineers and Geoscientists of Alberta.