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


NSF Invests $20M in UC San Diego-headquartered Artificial Intelligence (AI) Research Institute

NSF Invests $20M in UC San Diego-headquartered Artificial Intelligence (AI) Research Institute

July 29, 2021

MICS faculty will play key roles in TILOS, the new NSF AI Institue that is focused on Artificial Intelligence (AI) and optimization. Full Story


Students thrive in program focused on diversifying undergraduate engineering at UC San Diego

Students thrive in program focused on diversifying undergraduate engineering at UC San Diego

June 9, 2021

Among the more than 1,400 undergraduate engineering and computer science students earning bachelor’s degrees from the University of California San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering this year, are Xavier Perez, Yoon Jung Choi, and Armando Godoy-Velasquez, who are all members of the first cohort of ACES Scholars. Full Story


Neural implant monitors multiple brain areas at once, provides new neuroscience insights

Neural implant monitors multiple brain areas at once, provides new neuroscience insights

April 27, 2021

How do different parts of the brain communicate with each other during learning and memory formation? A study by researchers at UC San Diego takes a first step at answering this fundamental neuroscience question, thanks to a neural implant that monitors multiple brain regions at the same time. Full Story


Artificial neuron device could shrink energy use and size of neural network hardware

Artificial neuron device could shrink energy use and size of neural network hardware

March 18, 2021

Neural network training could one day require less computing power and hardware, thanks to a new nanodevice that can run neural network computations using 100 to 1000 times less energy and area than existing CMOS-based hardware. Full Story


Defending human-robot teams against adversaries goal of computer science grant

March 17, 2021

UC San Diego computer science professor Kamalika Chaudhuri is part of a multi-university team that has won a prestigious US Department of Defense Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative (MURI) Award to develop rigorous methods for robust human-machine collaboration against adversaries.    Full Story


Swift Sewage-Sifting System Boosts Efforts to Forecast and Mitigate the Spread of COVID-19

Swift Sewage-Sifting System Boosts Efforts to Forecast and Mitigate the Spread of COVID-19

March 11, 2021

The wastewater sampling initiative began as a pilot program on the UC San Diego campus in the summer of 2020 with only six collection sites but quickly grew as they determined that environmental testing was a key to preventing the spread of COVID-19. However, the manual work involved in concentrating samples was a roadblock to scaling the surveillance program beyond the university. This project marked the first collaboration between the Center for Microbiome Innovation (CMI) and the Center for Machine-Integrated Computing & Security (CMICS), both research centers are part of UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering. Full Story


Deepfake detectors can be defeated, computer scientists show for the first time

Deepfake detectors can be defeated, computer scientists show for the first time

February 8, 2021

Systems designed to detect deepfakes --videos that manipulate real-life footage via artificial intelligence--can be deceived, computer scientists showed for the first time at the WACV 2021 conference which took place online Jan. 5 to 9, 2021.   Full Story


Five UC San Diego teams receive $100,000 to support groundbreaking research

Five UC San Diego teams receive $100,000 to support groundbreaking research

January 19, 2021

The Qualcomm Innovation Fellowship (QIF) recognizes creative Ph.D. students, providing them with funding, mentoring and other resources to pursue innovative research. This year, five UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering teams were awarded fellowships – four from Computer Science and Engineering and one from Electrical and Computer Engineering.   Full Story


Industry Partners