Artificial Intelligence

OMSCS Team Takes Entrepreneurial Tack to Win $10,000 in Microsoft Azure Challenge

dgivens8 — Tue, 29 Jul 2025 12:57:41 +0000

OMSCS Team Takes Entrepreneurial Tack to Win $10,000 in Microsoft Azure Challenge dgivens8 Tue, 07/29/2025 - 08:57

A team of Georgia Tech graduate students is using artificial intelligence (AI) to help people with disabilities find their dream jobs.

Searching for the right job is stressful for most, but it can be overwhelming for people with disabilities. However, using an innovative approach, the student entrepreneurs created a customizable AI-powered "job coach" that connects people with accessible employment opportunities.

OMSCS students George Gomez, Ariel Magyar, Zachary Patrignani, and Maheer Sayeed created Interstellar Jobs as their entry for the March 2025 Microsoft Azure Innovation Challenge. The team beat over 70 international entries to secure first place and $10,000.

Interstellar Jobs uses information about job seekers' disabilities, job preferences, and other personal details to provide detailed coaching tips for specific jobs. The tips let job seekers know if they're a good fit for the position, what challenges they can expect, and what they can do to manage these challenges successfully.

The challenge, co-sponsored by TechBridge, required teams to create a functional proof of concept within a tight timeframe using AI, analytics, networking, and other Microsoft Azure Web Services.

Selecting which services to use was the starting point for most teams. In fact, Sayeed says most of the competition tried to use as many Azure services as possible for their projects.

"We didn't do that. We kept it simple," said Sayeed.

"Our mindset going into the challenge was that we'd find the problem first, and then we would look at the services we would use."

Their entrepreneurial approach led the team to develop Interstellar Jobs using just three Azure services. As an example of their approach, the team faced the challenge of addressing specific disabilities in relation to thousands of job listings.

Developers usually depend on drop-down menus when presenting an extensive list of options. However, this method might not cover all disabilities or could use outdated or overly broad language. It also wouldn't account for people with multiple or nuanced disabilities that don't fit neatly into a single category.

The Interstellar Jobs team opted for a blank field for users to list their disabilities.

"We kept it very open-ended for our users," said Sayeed.

The team used OpenAI Service to 'clean' entries on the backend, regardless of what users wrote in the blank field. This method ensures that users can always get a structured and actionable response from Interstellar Jobs.

"As a user, not having to pick from a drop-down menu just feels good," said Matt Calder, senior product marketing manager at Microsoft.

Calder hosts Microsoft DevRadio and recently interviewed the Interstellar Jobs team. "I like how your approach changes how people interact with the whole system. If you make something really usable, it's going to be accessible as well," said Calder.

Despite its success, the team has no immediate plans to expand Interstellar Jobs. Each member balances a full-time job and their studies in Georgia Tech's Online Master of Science in Computer Science (OMSCS) program.

"We gained so much about cloud development and Azure Web Services from the experience," said Sayeed. "We also learned the value of AI in these applications."

Subtitle

Summary sentence

A student team has "learned the value of AI" by creating a job coaching app for people with disabilities.

Summary

A team of OMSCS students took an entrepreneurial approach to develop an AI-powered app that coaches people with disabilities during their job search. The app, Interstellar Jobs, earned the team first place and $10,000 in a recent Microsoft Azure Web Services challenge.

Dateline

Fri, 06/27/2025 - 12:00

Contact

Ben Snedeker, Communications Manager II

Georgia Tech College of Computing

Associated importer

Keywords

Daily Digest

Georgia Tech News Center

artificial intelligence

artificial intelligence (AI)

Categories

Artificial Intelligence

Student Competition WInners (academic, innovation, and research)

Mercury ID

682917

Source updated

Fri, 06/27/2025 - 09:21

Powering the Future — Without Breaking the Grid

admin — Fri, 25 Jul 2025 20:15:41 +0000

Powering the Future — Without Breaking the Grid admin Fri, 07/25/2025 - 16:15

As Georgia positions itself as a hub for digital infrastructure, communities across the state are facing a growing challenge: how to welcome the economic benefits of data centers while managing their significant environmental and infrastructure impacts. These facilities, essential for powering artificial intelligence, cloud computing, and everyday internet use, are also among the most resource-intensive buildings in the modern economy.

While companies like Microsoft and Google have pledged to reach net-zero emissions, experts say more transparency and smarter policy are needed to ensure that data center development aligns with community and environmental priorities. That means ensuring adequate energy infrastructure, investing in renewables, training local workers, and mitigating water and carbon impacts through innovation.

A New Kind of Energy Crunch

The rapid rise of AI is fueling explosive demand for computing power — and in turn, energy.

“The proliferation of AI workloads has significantly increased data center energy requirements,” says Divya Mahajan, assistant professor in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering. “Large-scale AI training, especially for language models, leads to elevated and sustained power draw, often nearing the thermal and power envelopes of graphics processing units systems.”

This sustained demand is particularly challenging in hot, humid regions like Georgia, where cooling systems must work harder. “Training these models can cause thermal instability that directly affects cooling efficiency and power provisioning,” Mahajan explains. “This amplifies reliance on external cooling infrastructure, increasing water consumption and grid strain.”

Environmental and Economic Pressure

“Each new data center could lead to greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to a small town,” says Marilyn Brown, Regents’ and Brook Byers Professor of Sustainable Systems in the School of Public Policy. “In Georgia, the growth of data centers has already led to plans for new gas plants and the extension of aging coal plants.”

There’s an environmental cost to this growth: electricity and water. A single large data center can consume up to 5 million gallons of water per day.

Rising demand has a price. “It’s simple supply and demand,” says Ahmed Saeed, assistant professor at the School of Computer Science. “As overall power demand increases, if supply doesn’t keep up, costs will rise and the most affected will be lower-income consumers.”

Still, experts are optimistic that policy and technology can help mitigate these impacts.

Innovation May Hold the Key

Despite the challenges, experts see opportunities for innovation. “Technologies like direct-to-chip cooling and liquid cooling are promising,” says Mahajan. “But they’re not yet widespread.”

Saeed notes that some companies are experimenting with radical ideas, like Microsoft’s underwater Project Natick or locating data centers in Nordic countries where ambient air can be used for cooling. These approaches challenge conventional infrastructure norms by placing servers underwater or in remote, cold regions. “These are exciting, but we need scalable solutions that work in places like Georgia,” he emphasizes.

What Communities Should Ask For

As communities compete to attract data centers, experts say they should push for commitments that go beyond job creation.

“Communities should ensure that their power infrastructure can handle the added load without compromising resilience or increasing costs,” Saeed advises. “They should also require that data centers use renewable energy or invest in local clean energy projects.”

Training and hiring local workers is another key benefit communities can demand. “Deployment and maintenance of data centers require skilled workers,” Saeed adds. “Operators should invest in technical training and hire locally.”

Policy Can Make the Difference

Stronger policy frameworks can ensure growth doesn’t come at the expense of Georgia’s most vulnerable communities. “We need more transparency from companies about their energy and water use,” says Brown. “And we need policies that prevent the costs of supporting large consumers from being passed on to residential ratepayers.”

Some states are already taking action. Texas passed a bill to give regulators more control over large power consumers. In Georgia, a bill that would have paused tax breaks for data centers until their community impact was assessed was vetoed — but experts say the conversation is far from over.

“Data centers are here to stay,” says Saeed. “The question is whether we can make them sustainable — before their footprint becomes too large to manage.”

Summary sentence

Georgia’s booming data center industry brings economic promise and environmental pressure. Researchers say innovation and local action can tip the balance.

Summary

As Georgia emerges as a hub for digital infrastructure, the rapid growth of data centers — driven by rising demand for AI and cloud computing — presents both economic opportunity and environmental challenges. These resource-intensive facilities strain local power grids, increase greenhouse gas emissions, and consume millions of gallons of water daily. While companies pledge sustainability goals, Georgia Tech experts say stronger policies, greater transparency, and community-driven requirements are essential to ensure that growth benefits residents without overwhelming infrastructure or raising utility costs. Innovations in energy efficiency and cooling technologies show promise, but scalable solutions tailored to Georgia’s climate are urgently needed.

Dateline

Fri, 07/25/2025 - 12:00

Contact

Ayana IslesSenior Media Relations Representative Institute Communications

Associated importer

Keywords

data centers

environmental impact

go-researchnews

News room topics

Science and Technology

Categories

Artificial Intelligence

Energy

State Impact

Mercury ID

683306

Source updated

Fri, 07/25/2025 - 16:15

Georgia Tech to Build $20M National AI Supercomputer

admin — Wed, 16 Jul 2025 18:58:41 +0000

Georgia Tech to Build $20M National AI Supercomputer admin Wed, 07/16/2025 - 14:58

The National Science Foundation (NSF) has awarded Georgia Tech and its partners $20 million to build a powerful new supercomputer that will use artificial intelligence (AI) to accelerate scientific breakthroughs.

Called Nexus, the system will be one of the most advanced AI-focused research tools in the U.S. Nexus will help scientists tackle urgent challenges such as developing new medicines, advancing clean energy, understanding how the brain works, and driving manufacturing innovations.

“Georgia Tech is proud to be one of the nation’s leading sources of the AI talent and technologies that are powering a revolution in our economy,” said Ángel Cabrera, president of Georgia Tech. “It’s fitting we’ve been selected to host this new supercomputer, which will support a new wave of AI-centered innovation across the nation. We’re grateful to the NSF, and we are excited to get to work.”

Designed from the ground up for AI, Nexus will give researchers across the country access to advanced computing tools through a simple, user-friendly interface. It will support work in many fields, including climate science, health, aerospace, and robotics.

“The Nexus system's novel approach combining support for persistent scientific services with more traditional high-performance computing will enable new science and AI workflows that will accelerate the time to scientific discovery,” said Katie Antypas, National Science Foundation director of the Office of Advanced Cyberinfrastructure. “We look forward to adding Nexus to NSF's portfolio of advanced computing capabilities for the research community.”

Nexus Supercomputer — In Simple Terms

Built for the future of science: Nexus is designed to power the most demanding AI research — from curing diseases, to understanding how the brain works, to engineering quantum materials.

Blazing fast: Nexus can crank out over 400 quadrillion operations per second — the equivalent of everyone in the world continuously performing 50 million calculations every second.

Massive brain plus memory: Nexus combines the power of AI and high-performance computing with 330 trillion bytes of memory to handle complex problems and giant datasets.

Storage: Nexus will feature 10 quadrillion bytes of flash storage, equivalent to about 10 billion reams of paper. Stacked, that’s a column reaching 500,000 km high — enough to stretch from Earth to the moon and a third of the way back.

Supercharged connections: Nexus will have lightning-fast connections to move data almost instantaneously, so researchers do not waste time waiting.

Open to U.S. researchers: Scientists from any U.S. institution can apply to use Nexus.

Why Now?

AI is rapidly changing how science is investigated. Researchers use AI to analyze massive datasets, model complex systems, and test ideas faster than ever before. But these tools require powerful computing resources that — until now — have been inaccessible to many institutions.

This is where Nexus comes in. It will make state-of-the-art AI infrastructure available to scientists all across the country, not just those at top tech hubs.

“This supercomputer will help level the playing field,” said Suresh Marru, principal investigator of the Nexus project and director of Georgia Tech’s new Center for AI in Science and Engineering (ARTISAN). “It’s designed to make powerful AI tools easier to use and available to more researchers in more places.”

Srinivas Aluru, Regents’ Professor and senior associate dean in the College of Computing, said, “With Nexus, Georgia Tech joins the league of academic supercomputing centers. This is the culmination of years of planning, including building the state-of-the-art CODA data center and Nexus’ precursor supercomputer project, HIVE."

Like Nexus, HIVE was supported by NSF funding. Both Nexus and HIVE are supported by a partnership between Georgia Tech’s research and information technology units.

A National Collaboration

Georgia Tech is building Nexus in partnership with the National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, which runs several of the country’s top academic supercomputers. The two institutions will link their systems through a new high-speed network, creating a national research infrastructure.

“Nexus is more than a supercomputer — it’s a symbol of what’s possible when leading institutions work together to advance science,” said Charles Isbell, chancellor of the University of Illinois and former dean of Georgia Tech’s College of Computing. “I'm proud that my two academic homes have partnered on this project that will move science, and society, forward.”

What’s Next

Georgia Tech will begin building Nexus this year, with its expected completion in spring 2026. Once Nexus is finished, researchers can apply for access through an NSF review process. Georgia Tech will manage the system, provide support, and reserve up to 10% of its capacity for its own campus research.

“This is a big step for Georgia Tech and for the scientific community,” said Vivek Sarkar, the John P. Imlay Dean of Computing. “Nexus will help researchers make faster progress on today’s toughest problems — and open the door to discoveries we haven’t even imagined yet.”

Subtitle

Summary sentence

Summary

The National Science Foundation has awarded Georgia Tech and its partners $20 million to build a powerful new supercomputer that will use artificial intelligence to accelerate scientific breakthroughs. Called Nexus, the system will be one of the most advanced, AI-focused research tools in the U.S. Nexus will help scientists tackle urgent challenges such as developing new medicines, advancing clean energy, understanding how the brain works, and driving manufacturing innovations.

Dateline

Tue, 07/15/2025 - 12:00

media@gatech.edu

Contact

Siobhan Rodriguez
Senior Media Relations Representative
Institute Communications

Associated importer

Keywords

National Science Foundation

NSF

Georgia Tech

supercomputer

Nexus

artificial intelligence

scientific breakthroughs

hpc

clean energy

brain research

medicine development

manufacturing innovation

AI infrastructure

scientific discovery

persistent scientific services

quantum materials

climate science

health research

aerospace

robotics

flash storage

data transfer

U.S. researchers

AI workflows

ARTISAN

Coda Data Center

HIVE supercomputer

NCSA

University of Illinois

national collaboration

tech partnerships

research support

AI talent

scientific community

research access

AI tools

AI-centered innovation

go-researchnews

go-ai

News room topics

Campus and Community

Science and Technology

Categories

Artificial Intelligence

Computer Science/Information Technology and Security

Institute and Campus

Research

Mercury ID

683161

Source updated

Wed, 07/16/2025 - 14:56

Georgia Tech to Build $20M National AI Supercomputer

admin — Tue, 15 Jul 2025 15:05:37 +0000

Georgia Tech to Build $20M National AI Supercomputer admin Tue, 07/15/2025 - 11:05

Called Nexus, the system will be one of the most advanced, AI-focused research tools in the U.S. Nexus will help scientists tackle urgent challenges such as developing new medicines, advancing clean energy, understanding how the brain works, and driving manufacturing innovations.

Nexus Supercomputer — In Simple Terms

Built for the future of science: Nexus is designed to power the most demanding AI research — from curing diseases to understanding how the brain works to engineering quantum materials.

Blazing fast: Nexus can crank out over 400 quadrillion operations per second — the equivalent of everyone in the world continuously performing 50 million calculations every second.

Massive brain + memory: Nexus combines the power of AI and high-performance computing, with 330 trillion bytes of memory to handle complex problems and giant datasets.

Storage: Nexus will feature 10 quadrillion bytes of flash storage, equivalent to about 10 billion reams of paper. Stacked, that’s a column reaching 500,000 km high — enough to stretch from Earth to the Moon and a third of the way back.

Supercharged connections: Nexus will have lightning-fast connections to move data almost instantaneously, so researchers do not waste time waiting.

Open to U.S. researchers: Scientists from any U.S. institution can apply to use Nexus.

Why Now?

This is where Nexus comes in. It will make state-of-the-art AI infrastructure available to scientists all across the country, not just those at top tech hubs.

Like Nexus, HIVE was supported by NSF funding. Both Nexus and the HIVE are supported by a partnership between Georgia Tech’s research and information technology units.

A National Collaboration

Georgia Tech is building Nexus in partnership with the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, which runs several of the country’s top academic supercomputers. The two institutions will link their systems through a new high-speed network, creating a national research infrastructure.

Tech companies, whose technologies will power the system, will also play a role.

What’s Next

Summary sentence

Summary

Dateline

Tue, 07/15/2025 - 12:00

media@gatech.edu

Contact

Siobhan Rodriguez
Senior Media Relations Representative
Institute Communications

Associated importer

Keywords

go-ai

News room topics

Campus and Community

Science and Technology

Categories

Artificial Intelligence

Computer Science/Information Technology and Security

Institute and Campus

Research

Mercury ID

683139

Source updated

Tue, 07/15/2025 - 11:05

Brain-Inspired AI Breakthrough Spotlighted at Global Conference

dgivens8 — Thu, 26 Jun 2025 16:46:41 +0000

Brain-Inspired AI Breakthrough Spotlighted at Global Conference dgivens8 Thu, 06/26/2025 - 12:46

Researchers at Georgia Tech have taken a critical step forward in creating efficient, useful and brain-like artificial intelligence (AI). The key? A new algorithm that results in neural networks with internal structure more like the human brain.

The study, “TopoNets: High-Performing Vision and Language Models With Brain-Like Topography,” was awarded a spotlight at this year’s International Conference on Learning Representations (ICLR), a distinction given to only 2 percent of papers. The research was led by graduate student Mayukh Deb alongside School of Psychology Assistant Professor Apurva Ratan Murty.

Thirty-two of Tech’s computing, engineering, and science faculty represented the Institute at ICLR 2025, which is globally renowned for sharing cutting-edge research.

“We started with this idea because we saw that AI models are unstructured, while brains are exquisitely organized,” says first-author Deb. “Our models with internal structure showed more than a 20 percent boost in efficiency with almost no performance losses. And this is out-of-the-box — it’s broadly applicable to other models with no extra fine-tuning needed.”

For Murty, the research also underscores the importance of a rapidly growing field of research at the intersection of neuroscience and AI. “There's a major explosion in understanding intelligence right now,” he says. “The neuro-AI approach is exciting because it helps emulate human intelligence in machines, making AI more interpretable.”

“In addition to advancing AI, this type of research also benefits neuroscience because it informs a fundamental question: Why is our brain organized the way it is?,” Deb adds. “Making AI more interpretable helps everyone.”

Brain-inspired blueprints

In the brain, neurons form topographic maps: neurons used for comparable tasks are closer together. The researchers applied this concept to AI by organizing how internal components (like artificial neurons) connect and process information.

This type of organization has been tried in the past but has been challenging, Murty says. “Historically, rules constraining how the AI could structure itself often resulted in lower-performing models. We realized that for this type of biophysical constraint, you simply can’t map everything — you need an algorithmic solution.”

“Our key insight was an algorithmic trick that gives the same structure as brains without enforcing things that models don't respond well to,” he adds. “That breakthrough was what Mayukh (Deb) worked on.”

The algorithm, called TopoLoss, uses a loss function to encourage brain-like organization in artificial neural networks, and it is compatible with many AI systems capable of understanding language and images.

“The resulting training method, TopoNets, is very flexible and broadly applicable,” Murty says. “You can apply it to contemporary models very easily, which is a critical advancement when compared to previous methods.”

Neuro-AI innovations

Murty and Deb plan to continue refining and designing brain-inspired AI systems. “All parts of the brain have some organization — we want to expand into other domains,” Deb says. “On the neuroscience side of things, we want to discover new kinds of organization in brains using these topographic systems.”

Deb also cites possibilities in robotics, especially in situations like space exploration where resources are limited. “Imagine running a model inside a robot with limited power,” he says. “Structured models can help us achieve 80 percent of performance with just 20 percent of energy consumption, saving valuable energy and space. This is still experimental, but it's the direction we are interested in exploring.”

“This success highlights the potential of a new approach, designing systems that benefit both neuroscience and AI — and beyond,” Murty adds. “We can learn so much from the human brain, and this project shows that brain-inspired systems can help current AI be better. We hope our work stimulates this conversation.”

Subtitle

Summary sentence

Researchers at Georgia Tech have developed an algorithm that helps AI models develop internal organization just like the human brain — boosting efficiency by 20 percent.

Summary

Researchers at Georgia Tech have developed an algorithm that helps AI models develop internal organization just like the human brain — boosting efficiency by 20 percent.

Dateline

Thu, 06/26/2025 - 12:00

Contact

Written by Selena Langner

Contact: Jess Hunt-Ralston

Associated importer

Keywords

go-neuro

cos-neuro

go-ai

go-researchnews

Categories

Artificial Intelligence

Computer Science/Information Technology and Security

Research

Student and Faculty

Student Competition WInners (academic, innovation, and research)

Student Research

Mercury ID

682905

Source updated

Thu, 06/26/2025 - 12:46