Planning IUCRC Duke University: Center for Alternative Sustainable and Intelligent Computing

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This project will help plan for a potential NSF I/UCRC in Alternative Sustainable and Intelligent Computing (ASIC), in order to explore research frontiers in emerging computing platforms for cognitive applications, including speech recognition, face detection and election insights, etc. The planning of the I/UCRC center will be carried out under a unified banner, with inputs from academia, industry, and government stakeholders. As a result, the center will serve as a national platform for interdisciplinary research and communication, charged with investigating advanced computing platforms relevant to various topics of national interests such as national security and smart living, with an eye toward commercialization and economic development for the nation. It will pave the way for designing new computing diagram to address the White House Grand Challenge of developing transformational computing capabilities.Motivated by the fast growth of cognitive applications and the recent significant development progress of underlined technologies, the center will focus on designing alternative computing platforms for these applications, which is generally difficult to be efficiently executed on conventional von Neumann architecture. Industry is in great demand for a revolutionary computing platform designated to these applications and the planned academia-industry consortium is well positioned to meet such demanding needs with real-world applications. The establishment of ASIC, hence, will accelerate the development of the new computing diagram in industry sectors and expedite technology transfer from research discoveries to practical solutions. Duke University (Duke) site leads the coordination of the center and focuses on applications of alternative sustainable and intelligent computing systems, especially embedded systems, healthcare and medical, etc. The research projects performed, if succeed, will benefit computer and IT industries by introducing alternative computing platforms that well complement the conventional systems built on von Neumann architecture in short term, and position alternative sustainability and intelligent computing equivalently important in long term. The obtained knowledge and expertise will effectively backup the predictable booming of cognitive applications and their urgent demands for hardware and software supports. The talents and expertise of center PIs and the industry partners will be effectively integrated to enhance the competence of the center members and accelerate technology transfer process. The key transformative aspect of the planned ASIC is that, the success of the project will make great advances in seamlessly integrating non von Neumann vs. von Neumann architectures for future computing. Upon completion, this planning project will prepare a solid full center proposal for Phase I with strong supports from industry and government members. Broader impacts of the project will be reached by wide dissemination of the project outcomes via publications, seminars, tutorials and workshops, as well as industrial and military courses, social media and technology transfer activities. Students will receive invaluable experience in industry relevant applied research and networking opportunities with industry representatives in order to capitalize these experiences for their eventual employment.