Technology
AI leaders gather in Silicon Valley for UC Santa Cruz, SF Tech Week event
More than 200 people gathered for an event called “AI Frontier: Data, Agents & Robots.”
The first panel of the day focused on embodied AI, featuring UC Santa Cruz engineering researchers and AI industry leaders.
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This week, artificial intelligence (AI) builders, investors, and researchers came together for conversation, learning, and collaboration at the UC Santa Cruz Silicon Valley Center for an event called “AI Frontier: Data, Agents & Robots.”
The October 6 event, associated with SF Tech Week, was co-hosted by the Generative AI Center within the UC Santa Cruz Baskin School of Engineering and the Silicon Valley AI Pioneer Club.
The event provided the opportunity for more than 200 people across the field to network and discuss the transformative potential of AI in key areas including data intelligence, advanced analytics, machine learning, data-driven insights, autonomous agents, and robotics integration. Major themes that emerged during discussions included cybersecurity, verifiability, and scalability.
“This event exemplifies our center’s one major mission: building an open and inclusive AI ecosystem where academia, industry, and the broader community collaborate,” said Yi Zhang, director of Generative AI Center and a professor of computer science and engineering.
Three panels, titled Embodied AI, Agentic AI, and Founder Handbook allowed for discussion on each of these topics, with insights from UC Santa Cruz researchers and founders at a variety of companies with AI at the core of their missions.
“It was great to exchange ideas with other panelists, to see where everybody is in this journey as an industry, and where AI is being applied–there was lots of talk about robotics, security, and other domains. It was definitely a good checkpoint,” said Prakash Sundaresan, CEO and co-founder of DeFang, a company focused on cloud app deployment who was visiting the region for SF Tech Week.
The panels enabled people working across different domains to learn about the needs of those working within specific areas of the field.
“It was really interesting being on the AI agents panel,” said Ian Lane, associate professor of computer science and engineering and Baskin Engineering’s associate dean for Silicon Valley engagement. “There’s a lot of thought that software development is almost a solved problem, and it was really great to hear from people running companies that it is not, and there’s still a long way to go. It was really interesting to hear about customer engagement and solving the challenges there. If you’re trying to provide VIP support for a customer, how do you do it? I expect a lot will come out of that in the next few years.”
The event’s social and networking time enabled conversations across academia and industry, bringing together everyone from current students to industry leaders. Demos from both researchers and companies offered insights into innovative ways that AI is being deployed, providing fodder for collaboration.
“Right now I think we really need to have more opportunities to engage with industry to be able to conduct more large-scale impactful research,” said Yuyin Zhou, assistant professor of computer science and engineering. “In academia we still have constrained resources and data, so we need collaboration with industry.”
The Generative AI Center at UC Santa Cruz brings together scholars across campus to take a comprehensive approach to research, education, and the practical applications of AI. Research tackles both AI core technologies, and applications including health, scientific discovery, education, and creative arts. The Center’s mission is to drive innovation, foster inclusive ecosystems, and lead responsibly in the AI era. For more information about the UCSC GenAI Center and to learn about its industry affiliation program, visit https://genai.ucsc.edu/.