Closing the Virtuous Cycle of Photonics for AI and AI for Photonics

Dr. David Z. Pan

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

The University of Texas at Austin

11/3/2023

11AM – 12PM CST

Location: UTSA Main Campus, Student Union Hidalgo Room (2.214)

Zoom: https://utsa.zoom.us/j/91049981814

Photonics is a promising emerging technology that offers huge performance and efficiency benefits for AI/ML computing. There has been increasing interest in developing photonic AI accelerators for the next generation datacenters, smart sensing, intelligent edge, and automotive computing. However, realizing its full potential requires overcoming significant design challenges through a cross-layer co-design approach, where devices, circuits, architectures, and algorithms are optimized together. In this talk, I will show how photonics and AI interplay with each other. On the front of Photonics for AI, I will show some case studies of customized photonic device, circuit, architecture, and software co-design for efficient machine learning. On the front of AI for Photonics, I will show a novel machine learning framework for real-time photonic device simulations, which has the potential to speed up the customized photonic structure design through AI-enhanced optimizations. Closing the virtuous cycle of photonics for AI and AI for photonics shall hold great potential to significantly advance the state-of-the-art of each other.