The focus of the UC San Diego Center for Machine-Intelligence, Computing and Security(MICS)  is pioneering the next era of AI revolution by deeply integrating hardware, software, and data. Moving beyond traditional machine learning, our work focuses on the full lifecycle of modern intelligent systems—from the development and efficient deployment of massive generative foundation models and large language models (LLMs), to iteratively leveraging AI (which itself is fueled by the hardware capabilities itself) to dramatically accelerate chip design, to the rigorous validation of AI outputs through proofs of provenance and computation. We are fundamentally re-architecting computing stacks to support these data-intensive models, and using data-intensive models to make better compute systems, ensuring that training and inference can scale intelligently from the cloud to the most resource-constrained edge devices.

Our innovations directly enable the new wave of physically embedded intelligence, where intelligent agentic-based decision-making must occur in the real world with physical constraints and just in-time within physical embodiments such as drones, medical devices, and autonomous systems. We lead in agentic, automated performance optimization that adapts across diverse platforms and have pioneered the safe training and execution of deep learning-based networks directly on edge devices. Furthermore, our holistic approach to cyber-physical systems integrates advances in privacy-preserving computation and verifiable AI to secure these agents against adversarial threats, ensuring that the deployment of generative models in the physical world is both robust and trustworthy.

Recent News


Electrical engineer selected to lead Intel AI project

Electrical engineer selected to lead Intel AI project

December 7, 2020

Farinaz Koushanfar, a professor of electrical and computer engineering at the UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering, has been selected by Intel to lead one of nine inaugural research projects for the Private AI Collaborative Research Institute. Full Story


CleaNN: unsupervised, embedded defense against neural Trojan attacks

CleaNN: unsupervised, embedded defense against neural Trojan attacks

November 25, 2020

Engineers at UC San Diego have developed a new defense against neural network Trojan attacks on autonomous devices such as cars, drones, or security cameras. Their algorithm and hardware co-designed solution is the first end-to-end framework that enables the online real time mitigation of these Trojan attacks for embedded deep neural network algorithms. Full Story


UC San Diego COVID-19 Forecast Now Part of CDC Model

UC San Diego COVID-19 Forecast Now Part of CDC Model

October 30, 2020

A computational model that forecasts the number of COVID-19 deaths in the United States as a whole and in each state, which was developed by a team of researchers from the University of California San Diego and Northeastern University, is now part of the national mortality forecast issued by the Centers for Disease Control.   Full Story


Two UC San Diego Researchers Receive NIH High-Risk, High-Reward Awards

Two UC San Diego Researchers Receive NIH High-Risk, High-Reward Awards

October 6, 2020

Two University of California San Diego researchers have received prestigious awards through the 2020 National Institutes of Health (NIH) High-Risk, High-Reward Research Program, including Duygu Kuzum, a professor of electrical and computer engineering. Full Story


UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering Hires 24 Faculty in Fall 2020

UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering Hires 24 Faculty in Fall 2020

September 8, 2020

The University of California San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering is proud to introduce the 24 new professors hired in Fall 2020. These professors are among the more than 130 faculty who have joined the UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering in the last seven years. Full Story


UC San Diego engineers selected for DARPA Secure Silicon program

UC San Diego engineers selected for DARPA Secure Silicon program

August 13, 2020

Engineers at UC San Diego have been selected by DARPA to participate in the Automatic Implementation of Secure Silicon (AISS) program to increase the security of our nation’s semiconductor supply chain.  Full Story


COVID-19: the Jacobs School community engages

COVID-19: the Jacobs School community engages

May 19, 2020

The Jacobs School community has stepped up to the many challenges the SARS-CoV-2 visus has put before us. This is a cross section of projects that Jacobs School faculty, students and staff have launched in response to COVID-19. Some of these efforts are sure to grow into larger, sustained efforts. Others will morph or conclude as needs and available resources change. Through it all, our commitment to bold innovation for the public good remains.  Full Story


Engineering telemedicine app, universal control system for ventilators for COVID-19 care

Engineering telemedicine app, universal control system for ventilators for COVID-19 care

April 20, 2020

Engineers in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at UC San Diego have partnered with physicians at the Mayo Clinic to create a telemedicine to help critical care specialists provide the best possible care, even when resources are stretched thin. The team is also working on a universal control system that would work with any DIY ventilator. Full Story


Computer scientists receive $1 million DARPA grant to address information onslaught

Computer scientists receive $1 million DARPA grant to address information onslaught

March 10, 2020

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has awarded a $1 million grant to Computer Science and Engineering Department professors Tajana Rosing, Sanjoy Dasgupta and Electrical and Computer Engineering Department professor Tara Javidi to explore how hyperdimensional computing (HD) can help address informational onslaught. The project is called HyDREA (Hyperdimensional Computing: Robust, Efficient and Accurate). Full Story


Researchers Develop Framework that Improves Firefox Security

Researchers Develop Framework that Improves Firefox Security

February 25, 2020

Researchers from the University of California San Diego, University of Texas at Austin, Stanford University and Mozilla have developed a new framework to improve web browser security. The framework, called RLBox, has been integrated into Firefox to complement Firefox’s other security-hardening efforts. Full Story


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