How to Make AI Faster and Smarter—With a Little Help From Physics

The original version of this story appeared in Quanta Magazine. When she was 10 years old, Rose Yu got a birthday present that would change her life—and, potentially, the way we study physics. Her uncle got her a computer. That was a rare commodity in China 25 years ago, and the gift did not go unused. At first, Yu mainly played computer games, but in middle school she won an award for web design. It was the first of many computer-related honors. Yu went on to major in computer science at Zhejiang University, where she won a prize for innovative research. For her graduate studies, she chose the University of Southern California (USC), partly because the same uncle—who was the only person she knew in the United States—was then working at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in nearby Pasadena. Yu earned her doctorate in 2017 with an award for best dissertation. Her most recent honor came in January, when President Joe Biden, in his last week in office, gave her a Presidential Early Career Aw ... Read full article.