Register: Click here

Date: Thursday, 4 September 2025
Time: In-person: 6:30-8:00 PM (PDT), Online: 7:00-8:00 PM (PDT)
Speaker: Asheesh Goja
Location: Heafey 225, Santa Clara University. Hybrid (online info). Sandwiches/water provided for in-person attendees.
In-person Cost (pre-order): $15.00 general admission, $10.00 IEEE Members
In-person Cost (at the door): $20.00, no IEEE discount
Online Cost: Free

Abstract: The race toward Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) is accelerating, powered by ever-larger and more capable LLMs. But as these models scale, we are hitting the physical limits of general-purpose GPUs. Memory access is now slower and more energy-hungry than computation itself. Power demands are straining datacenter infrastructure. And as models span more chips, interconnect delays—not compute—become the bottleneck.

This talk explores how custom silicon—such as AWS Trainium, Google TPU, Cerebras WSE, and Groq LPU—is designed to overcome these barriers.

By keeping memory closer to compute, optimizing data movement, and delivering higher efficiency per watt, domain-specific accelerators are reshaping the hardware stack around the needs of LLMs.

Attendees will gain a clear framework for understanding why this shift matters, how it breaks past the Memory, Power, and Interconnect walls, and what it means for building a more scalable, cost-effective, and energy-efficient foundation on the road to AGI.

Speaker Bio: Asheesh Goja is Principal Solutions Architect at Amazon Web Services. Prior to AWS, Asheesh worked at prominent organizations such as Cisco and UPS, where he spearheaded initiatives to accelerate the adoption of several emerging technologies. His expertise spans ideation, co-design, incubation, and venture product development. Asheesh holds a wide portfolio of hardware and software patents, including a real-time C++ DSL, IoT hardware devices, Computer Vision and Edge AI prototypes. As an active contributor to the emerging fields of Generative AI and Edge AI, Asheesh shares his knowledge and insights through tech blogs and as a speaker at various industry conferences and forums.