Generative AI applications with their ability to produce natural language, computer code and images are transforming all aspects of society. These applications are powered by huge foundation models such as GTP-4 which are trained on massive unlabeled datasets. Foundation models have 10s of billions of parameters and have obtained state-of-the-art quality in natural language processing, vision and speech applications. These models are computationally challenging because they require 100s of petaFLOPS of computing capacity for training and inference. Future foundation models will have even greater capabilities provided by more complex model architectures with longer sequence lengths, irregular data access (sparsity) and irregular control flow. In this talk I will describe how the evolving characteristics of foundation models will impact the design of the optimized computing systems required for training and serving these models. A key element of improving the performance and lowering the cost of deploying future foundation models will be optimizing the data movement (Dataflow) within the model using specialized hardware. In contrast to human-in-the-loop applications such as conversational AI, an emerging application of foundation models is in continuous processing applications that operate without human supervision. I will describe how continuous processing and real-time machine learning can be used to create an intelligent network data plane.

Bio: Kunle Olukotun is the Cadence Design Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at Stanford University. Olukotun is a pioneer in multicore processor design and the leader of the Stanford Hydra chip multiprocessor (CMP) research project. He founded Afara Websystems to develop high-throughput, low-power multicore processors for server systems. The Afara multi-core multi-thread processor, called Niagara, was acquired by Sun Microsystems and now powers Oracle’s SPARC-based servers. Olukotun co-founded SambaNova Systems, a Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence company, and continues to lead as their Chief Technologist.

Olukotun is the Director of the Pervasive Parallel Lab and a member of the Data Analytics for What’s Next (DAWN) Lab, developing infrastructure for usable machine learning. He is a member of the National Academy of Engineering, an ACM Fellow, and an IEEE Fellow for contributions to multiprocessors on a chip design and the commercialization of this technology. He has received the ACM-IEEE CS Eckert-Mauchly Award and the IEEE Harry H. Goode Memorial Award.