From Unicorns to Centaurs: Powering the AI Moonshot
Partha Ranganathan gives his talk, “From Unicorns to Centaurs: Powering the AI Moonshot,” on October 14, 2026.
EECS Colloquium
October 14, 2026
Gateway 1220
4:00 – 5:00 pm
Partha Ranganathan
VP and Technical Fellow at Google
Bio
Partha Ranganathan is currently a VP and Technical Fellow at Google, where he is driving next-generation computing systems for the AI era. He has pioneered numerous impactful innovations touching billions of users, including widely adopted ideas across all mobile and cloud systems. He has published 100+ papers, is the co-author of the popular “Datacenter as a Computer” textbook, and is a co-inventor on 125+ patents. He has been recognized with numerous awards, notably: top 35 young innovators in the world by MIT Tech Review, top-15 enterprise technology rock star by Business Insider, IEEE & ACM Fellow, and Rice University outstanding young alumni & IIT Madras distinguished alumni awards. Fun fact: Partha is one of the few computer scientists to have an Emmy award!
Abstract
Decades after President Kennedy stood at Rice University to articulate the moonshot of that generation, Artificial Intelligence (AI) has emerged as the defining “space age” of our decade, transforming all aspects of our lives. In this talk, we will discuss the “rocket engines” necessary to power this moonshot, including the deep co-design required across the entire computing stack. We will present vertically-integrated innovations in AI infrastructure that have already birthed a new cottage industry of “unicorns”, ranging from physical data centers & hardware to software and cloud solutions, and identify the exciting opportunities ahead. We will then look forward to a future of “centaurs,” symbiotic partnerships between human ingenuity and artificial intelligence, highlighting the opportunities and challenges when we use AI to optimize AI. We will conclude by discussing how responsible innovation for this AI moonshot will need to go beyond codesign across technical communities to also require collective cross-community engagement and collaboration.