TechTalk

November 6, 2025 (Thursday) 4:00pm-5:00pm
The advancement of Rydberg atoms in quantum information technology is driving a paradigm shift from classical receivers to Rydberg atomic receivers (RARE). RAREs utilize the electron transition phenomenon of highly-excited atoms to interact with electromagnetic (EM) waves, thereby enabling the detection of wireless signals. Operating at the quantum scale, such new receivers have the potential to breakthrough the sensitivity limit of classical receivers, sparking a revolution in wireless communications. In this talk, I will first introduce the fundamentals of RAREs, covering their definition and properties, the interaction of Rydberg atoms with EM waves, as well as the electromagnetically-induced-transparency based quantum measurement. Then, the pros and cons of of RAREs compared as opposed to classical receivers will be discussed. The second part of this talk will present our latest progress in RARE aided communications and sensing, ranging from MIMO communications, sensing architecture, and integrated communication and sensing. The talk will be concluded with some promising future directions on integration of RARE into modern wireless communication systems.

November 4, 2025 (Tuesday) 4:00pm-5:00pm
As we move towards Sixth Generation (6G) wireless networks, the focus shifts from speed and capacity to building intelligent, adaptable, and resilient systems. This talk explores the integration of Artificial Intelligence (AI) into 6G networks, focusing on developing resilient intelligence for dynamic and resource-constrained environments. We present a novel framework that combines reinforcement learning, multi-agent coordination, and reward modeling to tackle challenges in wireless optimization, especially in environments with sparse, noisy, and delayed feedback. Our methods enable continuous adaptation to dynamic changes in traffic, mobility, and energy constraints, enhancing the resilience of 6G systems for critical applications like autonomous transport, industrial IoT, and emergency response. Through practical case studies, we demonstrate how adaptive intelligence can optimize network performance and improve the scalability of future wireless systems, offering insights into the path towards resilient, intelligent 6G networks.

June 19, 2025 (Thursday) 4:30-5:30pm
With modern AI seemingly transforming all aspects of our modern society like magic, it is easy to forget the impacts such modern technology marvel is causing to our fragile environment. From massive industry-scale training of large neural networks of epic sizes, to the proliferation of folding AI inference in our everyday activities, AI applications are rapidly increasing the stress to our global energy and water infrastructure. The coming era of AI demands not only the smartest AI models, but also a new generation of sustainable AI mindset that rethinks the when and how to apply AI intelligence.
In this talk, Professor So will discuss one angle that addresses the “how” question with intelligent algorithm-architecture co-designed systems that reduce both energy consumption and computing latency using dynamic sparse processing. Sharing the same “more is less” principle, a series of works from a dynamic sparse processing system for event cameras to token-steering in modern diffusion models will be discussed. Together, these works illustrate that by doing a little bit more upfront intelligently, it is possible to drastically reduce the amount of work necessary to perform the same AI inference operation during run time without affecting the accuracy of a model. The results are solutions that not only are fast, but they are also orders of magnitude more energy-efficient than typical GPU-accelerated systems.