Abstract: Artificial intelligence (AI) is transforming various industries and aspects of human life, including healthcare, finance, retail, autonomous vehicles, national security, and smart grids. Consequently, securing AI systems has become imperative. At the same time, AI can significantly enhance system security, for instance, by using machine learning to detect and respond to cyber threats in real-time or employing AI tools to prevent financial crimes. This dual focus—securing AI and leveraging AI for security—is essential, as these two aspects are deeply interconnected. In this talk, we will discuss the unique security challenges faced by AI systems and explore strategies such as Trusted Execution Environments (TEEs) to protect AI models and data, especially when using AI accelerators. We will also introduce AI-based techniques for detecting malicious activities in cyber-physical and IoT systems, concluding with a vision for utilizing TEEs, SmartNICs, and a new concept called 'safe-domains' to securely manage diverse AI workloads in hybrid cloud environments.

Bio: Deming Chen is the Abel Bliss Professor in the Grainger College of Engineering at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. His research interests include hybrid cloud systems, machine learning and AI, security and confidential computing, reconfigurable and heterogeneous computing, and system-level design methodologies. He has published over 280 research papers, received 10 Best Paper Awards and an ACM/SIGDA TCFPGA Hall-of-Fame Paper Award, and delivered more than 150 invited talks. His work has had a significant impact, with open-source solutions adopted by industry, such as FCUDA, DNNBuilder, CSRNet, SkyNet, ScaleHLS, and Medusa. Notably, Medusa has been integrated into Nvidia's TensorRT-LLM, improving the speed of large language model (LLM) execution by 1.9-3.6x. He is an IEEE Fellow, an ACM Distinguished Speaker, and the Editor-in-Chief of ACM Transactions on Reconfigurable Technology and Systems (TRETS). Under his leadership, the impact factor of ACM TRETS has increased by 3.8 times. He also serves as the Illinois Director of the IBM-Illinois Discovery Accelerator Institute and the Director of the AMD-Xilinx Center of Excellence. Additionally, he has been involved in several startup companies, including AutoESL and Inspirit IoT. He received his Ph.D. in Computer Science from UCLA in 2005.