For the fifth year, a platform that gathers world-renowned industry experts and academics on artificial intelligence, Samsung AI Forum (SAIF) 2021, is around the corner. The event will serve as a place for exchanging ideas, insights, and the most recent research findings, as well as a forum for discussing AI’s future.

The two-day virtual forum will take place from 1-2 November 2021 and will be accessible via its YouTube channel. The event will kickstart with a keynote address from the winner of the 2018 Turing Award (also known as the Nobel Prize in computing) – Professor Yoshua Bengio on “GFlowNets for Scientific Discovery”. Immediately after the keynote speech, three technology sessions will be delivered, including Scalable and Sustainable AI Computing, Trustworthy Computer Vision and AI for Scientific Discovery.

What all to look for

The entire two-day event will have different themes. Vice-Chairman and CEO of Device Solutions at Samsung Electronics, Dr Kinam Kim, will deliver the opening remarks. 

Day 1, AI Research for Tomorrow: Distinguished AI specialists will address various AI technologies and will comment on the research direction on AI — from fundamental research to its applications — as well as how AI research will affect other sectors such as new material development and semiconductors, under the subject “AI Research for Tomorrow.” Various AI firms will present an overview of current developments in cutting-edge AI technology and reveal their actual business application models at this year’s session. Furthermore, SAIT’s AI research leaders will talk at the forum and present Samsung’s AI research’s current state and future direction.

In order to discover and honour rising researchers in the field of artificial intelligence, Samsung AI, last year, established the Researcher of the Year Awards. “This year’s forum will be organised as a venue for sharing the current status of AI technology research and AI applications as well as discussing ways to transform AI into a technology that substantially contributes to our daily lives,” said Professor Bengio.

The event is as follows:

Opening Remarks — Kinam Kim / Vice Chairman, Samsung Electronics

Keynote “GFlowNets for Scientific Discovery” — Yoshua Bengio from the University of Montreal

 Session 1. Scalable & Sustainable AI Computing

  • Changkyu Choi, Corporate SVP, Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology
  • Kunle Olukotun from Stanford University
  • Andrew Feldman, Founder & CEO, Cerebras Systems

Session 2. AI for Scientific Discovery

  • Young Sang Choi, Corporate VP, Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology
  • Gerbrand Ceder, University of California, Berkeley
  • Bryce Meredig, Founder & CSO, Citrine Informatics

Session 3. Trustworthy Computer Vision

  • Jae-Joon Han, VP of Technology, Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology
  • Antonio Torralba from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
  • Daniel Bibireata, VP, LandingAI

AI Researcher of the Year

Panel Discussion

Day 2, AI in a Human World: Samsung Research, the company’s advanced R&D centre that oversees the development of future technologies for its Consumer Electronics and IT & Mobile Communications divisions, will host the sessions. Then, Dr Sebastian Seung, President and Head of Samsung Research, will deliver the keynote address, and AI experts who have been actively involved in AI research activities around the world will share their standpoint on the current state of AI and future research directions that will have a significant impact on our lives.

Similar to the first day, 2010 Turing Award winner Professor Leslie Valiant of Harvard University will deliver the keynote on the topic of integrating machine learning and inference for next-generation AI. After this, two technology sessions will follow, including Interpretability for Skeptical Minds by Been Kim, Research Scientist at Google Brain and Understanding Matter with Deep Learning by Professor Max Welling, Amsterdam University and Lab Head of Microsoft Research Amsterdam.

Moreover, those interested in attending can do so until the day of the event by registering on the Samsung AI Forum’s website here. Those who do so will get access to the SAIF itinerary and will be able to submit questions to the experts before the event begins.