University of Oregon’s Distopia Lab to use Theta EdgeCloud for AI Research 🚀
Theta Labs has entered into a multi-year agreement with the University of Oregon’s Distopia Laboratory, led by Assistant Professor Suyash Gupta, to use Theta EdgeCloud for large scale AI model training and inference.
As a Tier 1 research institution, the Universty of Oregon is home to several cutting-edge research centers, including those focused on Artificial Intelligence (AI) and computer science, which play a vital role in advancing these fields in the U.S. Dr. Suyash Gupta’s research at the Distopia Laboratory bridges distributed systems, blockchain, and federated learning, with a focus on building scalable, fault-tolerant architectures. His work is regularly featured at prestigious conferences, such as EuroSys 2023, where his paper “Dissecting BFT Consensus: In Trusted Components We Trust” won the Best Paper Award. He has also contributed significantly to the International Conference on Data Engineering (ICDE), the Conference on Innovative Data Systems Research (CIDR), and the International Conference on Very Large Data Bases (VLDB), with research on secure transaction processing, serverless architectures, and resilient networks.
In addition to his expertise in decentralized systems, Dr. Gupta’s research incorporates AI, particularly in federated learning. His recent paper, “Transfer Learning via Latent Dependency Factor for Estimating PM 2.5,” was accepted at the European Conference on Machine Learning and Knowledge Discovery in Databases (ECML PKDD) 2024, a leading international conference focused on cutting-edge AI research in machine learning, data mining, and knowledge discovery. ECML PKDD’s rigorous standards make it a key platform for showcasing impactful research, further highlighting Dr. Gupta’s approach to integrating AI and distributed systems.
● Theta EdgeCloud expands presence in the US academic sector
This partnership represents a milestone for Theta Labs as it expands its presence in the US academic sector, building upon the company’s established collaborations with four of the top five universities in South Korea in the past few months. These universities are utilizing Theta EdgeCloud for advanced AI research across fields like media, healthcare, bioinformatics, and finance.
The partnership also opens up new possibilities for the Distopia Laboratory to push the boundaries of AI research, particularly in the areas of distributed systems, blockchain, and federated learning. When researchers need to run complex AI models, EdgeCloud distributes the work across this network, completing tasks faster and cheaper than traditional cloud services. This decentralized approach makes powerful computing more accessible while efficiently using resources that would otherwise be idle, and the increased productivity and cost-effectiveness of Theta EdgeCloud will enable the lab to tackle more complex AI challenges and accelerate research in distributed and decentralized systems.
Academic AI labs, with their focus on openness, transparency, and data sharing, need direct and scalable access to computing power. AI research, while incredibly powerful, requires vast computational resources that traditional centralized cloud providers can’t provide efficiently. As we worked closely with top Korean universities in the last few months, we found that even more important than cost and availability, is the 5x faster time to productivity of GPU resources — to be able to spin up and down resources on demand, quickly without increased costs. This fast turnaround time is critical to academic labs as they are often under time pressure to submit research and publish papers for technical conferences year-round.
● Making Computing Resources Universally Accessible
The collaboration between the University of Oregon and Theta Labs is more proof of the importance of decentralized cloud infrastructure in academic research. By providing high-performance computing at significantly lower costs than traditional cloud providers, Theta enables university labs to pursue ambitious projects with less constrained budgets. This allows academic institutions to compete more effectively with well-funded commercial AI labs, allowing for larger-scale experiments, training of more complex models, and exploration of advanced AI applications.
https://medium.com/theta-network/university-of-oregons-distopia-lab-to-use-theta-edgecloud-for-ai-research-6cae02981a11
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