The Department of Computer Science and Information Systems (CSIS) at BITS Pilani has organized a research talk on "Realizing Artificial Intelligence: Edge-to-Cloud-to-Exascale," by Dr. Puneet Sharma, Director of the Networking and Distributed Systems Lab at Hewlett Packard Labs, USA. This insightful event happened on September 23, 2024, from 5:00 PM to 6:30 PM, at the TP Classrooms across all BITS Pilani campuses, i.e. Pilani, Goa, Hyderabad and Dubai and many enthusiasts joined via Webex.

Dr. Puneet Sharma, a renowned leader in AI infrastructure research, is an IEEE Fellow and ACM Distinguished Scientist.

Dr. Puneet had open discussion with Prof. V. Ramgopal Rao, Vice Chancellor, BITS Pilani to initiate the collaborations with HP Labs in India and USA. Prof. Sudhir Kumar Barai, Director, BITS Pilani, Pilani Campus discussed the possibility of running a course module for BITS Pilani Students. Dr. Sharma promised to conduct a course on Software Defined Networks.

Dr. Sharma addressed the growing challenges of AI infrastructure, emphasizing the need to optimize systems to handle the increasing computational load driven by cutting-edge AI technologies. During the talk, Dr. Sharma raised concerns about the current approaches in AI deployment and how the infrastructure behind it needs to evolve. He highlighted various strategies being developed to improve scalability, resilience, and efficiency in AI infrastructure without compromising on performance. The talk provided an insightful look into the future of AI and its potential to revolutionize industries while addressing the practical challenges of its implementation.

The event was well-attended, sparking discussions among faculty, students, and researchers on how to further push the boundaries of AI innovation.

Prof. Navneet Goyal discussed regarding the initiatives taken by the CSIS department in the area of Artificial Intelligence. Prof. Yashvardhan Sharma, Head of the Department, Computer Science and Information Systems has talked about history of BITS Pilani and department’s growth journey. Prof. Sharma provide a brief introduction of the speaker.