AI 2025: Most recent Developments and Trends in Artificial Intelligence
Date: Wedn March 12, 2025 6:30 - 8:30 PM, at ITRI 2880 Zanker Suite 103. Seminar talk will start at 7PM.
The Zoom link for the seminar is as follows:
Zoom Link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86815888890
“AI 2025: Most recent Developments and Trends in Artificial Intelligence” by Dr. William Kao
Abstract: Artificial Intelligence (AI) is undergoing rapid evolution, driven by breakthroughs in large language models (LLMs) and a growing trend toward open-source development.
This seminar explores the most recent (Q1 2025) advancements in AI, highlighting cutting-edge reasoning models such as DeepSeek R1 model, Alibaba’s Qwen 2.5, Allen Institute for AI (AI2) Tulu-3, xAI’s Colossus project and Grok-3, Project Stargate, and also OpenAI’s chatGPT 4.5.
In this seminar newly used techniques such as Mixture of Experts (MoE), model distillation , multi-head latent attention(MLA), and Test time compute, will be covered and explained.
Also new trends such as open-source vs proprietary models, slower reasoning models versus fast response models will be discussed.
Speaker Bio:
Dr. William Kao received his BSEE, MSEE and PhD from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. He worked in the Semiconductor and Electronic Design Automation industries for more than 30 years holding several senior and Executive engineering management positions at Texas Instruments, Xerox Corporation, and Cadence Design Systems.
Dr. Kao has authored more than 40 technical papers on IC CAD at IEEE Journals and Conferences, and holds eight US software and IC design patents. He was an Adjunct Professor at UCLA Electrical Engineering Department where he taught courses in computer aided IC design.
Dr. Kao is a Senior Member of IEEE, and was one of the founding members of IEEE-Circuits and Systems - Silicon Valley Chapter.
Dr. Kao teaches Clean Technology and Emerging Technology courses at the University of California Santa Cruz, Silicon Valley Extension.
He has given more than 100 technical seminars on various Emerging Technologies including Clean Technology, Renewable Energy, Big Data and Data Analytics, IoT, Smart Cities, Augmented and Virtual Reality, Robotics, Drones, AI / Machine Learning, Robotics, 5G, 3D Printing, the Metaverse and Satellite Communications.
CIE-SF High School Student Scholarship Award 2025 Application
Date: 2/24- 4/5
Chinese Institute of Engineers, San Francisco Bay Area Chapter (CIE/USA-SF) is now accepting applications for the Scholarship Award. The scholarship award winners will be awarded US $300 and a granted CIE scholarship certificate, presented at the CIE/USA-SF Annual Conference on May (Sat), 2025, at the Bay Area. The Award Date will be updated later.
Being the oldest Chinese engineering and science society in North America, and following a long-standing tradition of pursuing excellence, CIE/USA-SF has established this award program to recognize and encourage the outstanding high school students of its members. The selection criteria will be based on an overall accomplishment of applicants' academic performance, extracurricular activities achievement and the participation in community services. Each award winner will receive a Certificate of Merit and a check of two hundred dollars and shall need to attend the CIE/SF Annual Conference to receive it.
All applicants must meet the following qualifications:
1. A CIE/USA-SF member's children
2. Currently a Junior or Senior (11th or 12th grade) in high school
3. Has never received the award from the CIE/SF Chapter before
4. Must be able to attend the award ceremony to receive the award and certificate
All applicants must submit the following documents in soft copies:
1. A completed application form (download template
https://cie-sf.org/index.php/archives/summary/3-scholarship/2-scholarship-application-template)
2. A passport type photo (> 300kb), to be published in the CIE/USA-SF 2025 annual conference proceedings
3. A high school Transcript
4. A personal essay (no more than 250 words) which includes information such as: honors and awards received, offices of student organizations held, extracurricular activities, community service involved, volunteer work experiences, etc.
5. (For Non-CIE/SF parents only) Join membership online from HERE (http://cie-sf.org/index.php/membership/join-member)The deadline for the application is April 5, 2025, Please apply now!
For 12th grade students, please send in your application ASAP for possible early decision.
Contact Person: Estella Pok
Application material please email to