Events

The technology industry is rapidly crossing a critical threshold. We are moving beyond AI as a passive Copilot (a tool that simply advises engineers) and entering the era of AI as an active Agent. These new agents are capable of autonomously diagnosing issues and executing changes directly within global production environments. However, granting AI write-access to mission-critical infrastructure introduces a new class of systemic business risk. Without the right safeguards, autonomous systems can make unpredictable decisions or be manipulated, leading to cascading operational failures. The transition to autonomy requires technology leaders to fundamentally rethink their Site Reliability Engineering (SRE) and security strategies. In this session, the speakers bridge the gap between strategic leadership and architectural rigor. Attendees will receive a comprehensive blueprint for safely managing the transition to AI-operated infrastructure, ensuring their systems remain highly intelligent and fundamentally incorruptible. The Dual-Track Roadmap This session provides a comprehensive framework to navigate the era of Agentic SRE, divided into two distinct tracks: Track 1: The Management Imperative (Strategy) Quantifying the ROI of Autonomy: Learn how to balance the efficiency gains of autonomous systems against operational costs and underlying model risks. Defining Agentic Oversight: Establish the critical cultural and operational boundaries between decisions that require human approval and tasks that can be safely fully automated. Track 2: The Security Blueprint (Architecture) Pioneering the IARA Framework: A high-level overview of the Incorruptible Autonomy Reference Architecture, a 7-pillar security model for safely deploying AI agents. Architecting Trust: Discover how to grant AI systems temporary, just-in-time permissions to prevent unauthorized access and severely limit the blast radius of any potential errors. Speaker(s): Ankush Sharma, Kunal Kannav Santa Clara University, Santa Clara, California, United States, Virtual: https://events.vtools.ieee.org/m/547313

Continuation of Stanford IEEE Speaker Series Stanford, California, United States, 94305

April 7 6PM-7:30PM Member Techical Meeting at Santa Clara University - with Pizza: This meeting will explore the Future of Work with speakers who will address the technical and business workforce environment given the changes that have transpired with the increasing use of generative and agentic AI. Our speakers include Claudionor Coelho, Chief AI Officer at Majestic Labs ai as well as a to be named leader in AI business process applications. The format will include conversation over pizza and formal speakers from 6:45-7:15, concluding with open disucssion. Agenda: AGENDA - Various types of Pizza and drinks will be served - Introductions - Panel The Future of Work: Claudionor Coelho, Cheif AI officer at Zscaler - Open Discussion Room: 2116, Bldg: Sobrato Campus for Discovery and Innovation (SCDI), Santa Clara University, 500 El Camino Real, Santa Clara, California, United States, 95050, Virtual: https://events.vtools.ieee.org/m/547984

In this presentation, I will present some of the recent progresses in building conversational agents, with a focus on the speech modality. I will introduce desirable properties of such systems and explain some of the key concepts, core ideas, and main technologies developed in practical systems. Speaker(s): , Dong Yu Virtual: https://events.vtools.ieee.org/m/545402

[]Chiplets have become a compelling approach to scaling and heterogeneous integration e.g. integrating workload-specific processors and massive bandwidth memory systems into computing systems; integrating die from multiple function-optimized process nodes into one product; integrating silicon from multiple businesses into one product. Chiplet-based products have been produced in high volume by multiple companies using proprietary chiplet ecosystems. Recently, the community has proposed several new standards (e.g., UCIe) to facilitate integration and interoperability of any compliant chiplet. Hyperscalers (e.g., Google, Amazon) are actively designing high volume products with chiplets through these open interfaces. Other communities are exploring the end-to-end workflow and tooling to assemble chiplet-based products. High performance computing can benefit from this trend. However, the performance, power, and thermal requirements unique to HPC, present many challenges to realizing a vision for affordable, modular HPC using this new approach. Architectural modeling and simulation will play a critical role in pathfinding for this new potential direction for HPC beyond Exascale. Speaker(s): John Shalf, Virtual: https://events.vtools.ieee.org/m/539463

(NOTE: This event is only open to SJSU students, faculty and staff.) Silicon Valley is commonly acknowledged as the tech capital of the world. How did Silicon Valley come into being, and what can we learn for our own careers? The story goes back to local Hams trying to break RCA's tube patents, Stanford "angel" investors, the sinking of the Titanic, WW II and radar, and the SF Bay Area infrastructure that developed –these factors pretty much determined that the semiconductor and IC industries would be located in the Santa Clara Valley, and that the Valley would remain the world’s innovation center as new technologies emerge –digital, then software, biotech, VR, autonomous vehicles, artificial intelligence, LLMs –and be the model for innovation worldwide. This talk will give an exciting and colorful history of development and innovation that began in Palo Alto in 1909. You'll meet some of the colorful characters –Cyril Elwell, Lee De Forest, Bill Eitel, Charles Litton, Fred Terman, David Packard, Bill Hewlett, Bill Shockley and others –who came to define our worldwide electronics industries through their inventions and process development. You'll understand some of the novel management approaches that have become the hallmarks of its tech startups. In this talk, the key Silicon Valley attributes will be illustrated and analyzed, for consideration by engineers interested in creating their own start-ups and high-tech businesses, working for them, or simply understanding them. Speaker(s): Paul Wesling, San Jose State Unversity, San Jose, California, United States, Virtual: https://events.vtools.ieee.org/m/545434

This is a hybrid in-person and online event. Pre-registration is required for either. Conversational AI systems today speak with remarkable confidence, often giving the impression of understanding and reasoning. However, teams deploying these systems often quickly encounter familiar problems: drift, hallucinations, contradictory answers, and conversations that quietly lose their original purpose. Why do systems that seem so capable end up behaving so unpredictably? In this talk, Elena Gostrer will examine these behaviors from a practical, product-engineering perspective. Rather than exploring model internals, this talk will focus on what actually happens when humans interact with probabilistic language models – and why traditional software assumptions fail in conversational settings. Elena will also discuss what architectural patterns teams are adopting to keep in control, and she’ll highlight why combining generative AI with explicit structure, state, and constraints is becoming essential. Attendees will leave with a clearer understanding of why conversational AI breaks, what helps it behave more reliably, and how to think differently about designing human-AI interactions. Speaker(s): Elena Gostrer, 925 Thompson Place, Sunnyvale, California, United States, 94085, Virtual: https://events.vtools.ieee.org/m/541387

Continuation of Speaker Series at Stanford IEEE. Stanford, California, United States, 94305

Ontario Power Generation’s Darlington New Nuclear Project (DNNP) is at the forefront of deploying Small Modular Reactor (SMR) technology in Canada, anchored by the GE Vernova Hitachi BWRX-300. As North America’s first commercial, grid-scale SMR, DNNP plans up to four units totaling 1,200 MW. The project introduces advanced safety features, including natural circulation cooling, integral isolation valves, and passive heat removal, while supporting thousands of jobs and boosting Ontario’s economy. A collaboration between OPG, GE Vernova Hitachi, AtkinsRéalis, and Aecon-Kiewit, DNNP strengthens Ontario’s clean energy leadership and sets a model for SMR deployment globally. With construction underway, DNNP will help meet rising electricity demand, advance electrification, and deliver reliable, carbon-free power, showcasing nuclear innovation’s vital role in climate action and economic growth. Speaker: Michael Takla, Ontario Power Generation Event Moderator: Dr. Maike Luiken, PhD, SMIEEE, IEEE-HKN, FEIC, FCAE, is managing director, R&D, at a start-up company, Carbovate Development, and Adjunct Research Professor, Western University, Canada. Speaker(s): Michael Takla, Maike Luiken Agenda: We were given written permission to rebroadcast the Canadian earlier program which will be on April 1 at 9:00am. The SCV Section Life Members Affinity Group program will be at the more convenient time on Apr 15, 2026 at 07:00 PM Pacific Time Virtual: https://events.vtools.ieee.org/m/547687

Datacenter workload fluctuations challenge the design and operation of our critical grid infrastructure. Significant gaps exist in assessment of these fluctuations as to their lifetime and short-term impact on the infrastructure and environment. Some mitigation approaches focus on throttling the datacenter workload, thus impacting the performance. Other approaches include use of alternate generation sources or energy storage systems. While disparate, these approaches are reactive and lack foresight and the intelligence to plan and strategize for optimal power management. We introduce an approach to quantify the transitional entropy generated during datacenter power fluctuations as a metric to evaluate datacenter performance using power demand measurements. A comparative assessment is provided between a BESS optimized datacenter and a regular datacenter to demonstrate the reduction of irreversibilities due to power fluctuations. Workloads are used to characterize the datacenter power demand at the point of interaction with utility. This approach can be scaled from datacenters to servers to chips. Speaker(s): Ratnesh K Sharma, Agenda: No-host social at 5:30pm Presentation at 6:00pm Dinner at 7:00pm Presentation continues at 7:45pm Adjourn by 8:30pm Zio Fraedo's, 611 Gregory Lane, Pleasant Hill, California, United States, 94523

Reserve this date for a social gathering followed by this presentation. IEEE member fee is subsidized. Before Wi-Fi, smartphones, and streaming, there were spark transmitters, crystal sets, and glowing vacuum tubes. Rachel Lee, the Executive Director of the California Historical Radio Society will discuss the work being done to preserve the technologies and stories that shaped modern electronic communication. This presentation offers a fast-paced visual tour of the CHRS Museum in Alameda. Agenda: Social meeting, presentation, and lunch. Select from buffet or order from menu depending on the number of registrations. Bldg: Golf course restaurant, not pro shop, Beeb's Sports Bar and Grill, 915 Club House Drive, Livermore, California, United States

Monthly AdCom meeting: 1. Welcome - Hualiang 2. Symposium status update - Annette/Paul/Hualiang 3. Education outreach status - Masha/Azmat/Hualiang 4. Chapter Storage - Hualiang XXXX NOT 5. Monthly talk preparation - Chandan/Luu 6. Chapter website update - XXXX NOT Venkatesh/Claire/Paul 7. Senior member advancement - Dwayne Xxxx NOT 8: Election 2026 9: Open discussion - All Agenda: Monthly AdCom meeting: 1. Welcome - Hualiang 2. Symposium status update - Annette/Paul/Hualiang 3. Education outreach status - Masha/Azmat/Hualiang 4. Chapter Storage - Hualiang XXXX NOT 5. Monthly talk preparation - Chandan/Luu 6. Chapter website update - XXXX NOT Venkatesh/Claire/Paul 7. Senior member advancement - Dwayne Xxxx NOT 8: Election 2026 9: Open discussion - All Virtual: https://events.vtools.ieee.org/m/549396