Some of the current topics of interest and research are as follows: 

1) Emerging and Novel Computing Paradigms: To what extent architectures will be 'programmer-driven' versus 'data-driven' will be one of the central questions in future computer systems. For the data-driven part, the idea is to make processing data-enriched by exploiting the scale, site or location, semantics or structure of data. At the same time, the strong legacy of programming cannot be completely wiped out. Emerging technologies and associated algorithms in quantum computing, machine learning, neuromorphic computing, in-memory computing, etc. will also likely determine the outcome and the resultant end systems. We are working on full-system design and implementation using these upcoming technologies. I believe these technologies warrant and permit rethinking computer architecture and systems from scratch! (point 2)

2) Ground-up Computer System Design: I believe that complexity, manageability or just pure scale limits the design of current computer systems and therefore addressing scalability-related issues in system design will become increasingly important. In here, the right balance has to be struck between hardware and software, between the use of edge systems and centralized systems, and other such otherwise orthogonal approaches. For computer systems to be a part of our long-term civilizational story, they need to become more dependable (i.e. trustworthy, safe, secure, etc.) as well. 

3) Democratization of Computing with a Focus On Societal Issues: Human-centric, society-centric and even ecology-centric computers are the focus here. Under this topic, the attempt is to look at the larger needs of society, such as towards education, health, banking and other services, and our planet, such as towards sustainability, energy, etc. Ground-up thinking is therefore needed on how computing is used (point 2) and this in turn will impact the future of workspaces and how we design systems for these future workspaces (such as, future classrooms, future hospitals, future cars, etc). One of the goals here is to best enable a positive role of computing in these critical societal domains/areas.   

Solutions to the various issues are intimately linked to the future of computing.