Mike Ash

strategist. futurist. technologist. dad. director @CaltechCTME for unique custom education & transformation for high-tech engineering organizations & gov’t.

[Caltech @Caltech]

Meet Caltech's tenth president, Ray Jayawardhana!

[NASA JPL @NASAJPL]

One rocket, two missions! 🚀

SPHEREx and PUNCH are set to launch atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Vandenberg Space Force Base on Saturday, March 8.

Liftoff is targeting 7:10pm PT / 10:10pm ET.

[Spacecraft Flight SW @FSWWorkshop]

2025 Flight Software Workshop Sponsor Highlight - OAR
Dr Joel Sherrill will give an overview of the state of RTEMS including new developments, capabilities, and partnerships.
Currently Monday, March 24st
Check https://t.co/NKTmIJcXcP for latest schedule

[Prof. Anima Anandkumar @AnimaAnandkumar]

An eventful day, but I am not personally worried for the following reasons:

The new DeepSeek models show a number of advances that make training more efficient, and I expect those to be quickly incorporated by the leading US labs, giving them some additional performance benefits. There is a vast amount of innovation out there that makes model training more efficient, including some of our own, like GaLore, that my lab developed together with Meta, but it has not yet been incorporated in any public Llama release.

While there are a large number of advances that are similar to these out there in open research, incorporating them into the biggest model runs is a risky endeavor, since every single one comes at a risk of breaking the training run if it doesn't actually work. The DeepSeek paper omits to detail the cost of all those failed attempts and only accounts for the final successful one.

For this reason, it is very tempting for some of the bigger labs to just scale what they know to work bigger without incorporating any risky new approaches. If that continues too long there is a chance that one misses out on a number of gains that compound which has happened here. I expect in the future that in addition to the big training runs (which I fully expect to continue), labs will now invest in more mid-size training runs on top of that to try out more experimental techniques to not let this happen again and benefit from open research more quickly.

In terms of impact on the chip market, this work further reinforces the approach of test-time computing for reasoning, which will require significant resources. Since DeepSeek showed further innovation and modifications to model architecture will continue to happen, it will remain advantageous for general-purpose GPUs as opposed to narrow specialized inference chips. While DeepSeek is already available on many GPU-based hosting providers, they so far seem to be absent from the ones with specialized chips, despite the fact that the DeepSeek base model has been available for almost a month. This shows the importance of the entire GPU stack to quickly adopt new innovations.

[Indy Autonomous Challenge @IndyAChallenge]

@Caltech researchers have developed a revolutionary algorithm, SETS, that enables autonomous robots to make real-time, intelligent navigation decisions. This cutting-edge technology will soon be tested by Caltech on an IAC AV-24 (the Indy Autonomous Challenge's open wheel autonomous racecar). Read more about what Caltech is doing to revolutionize physical AI 👇
https://t.co/jT6VtFyiit

#AutonomousTech #AI #Racing

[Eric Idle @EricIdle]

Try @vromans in Pasadena. I’m also doing a signing talk in LA on the 29th. He doesn’t charge that much. Why the UK it’s not published there.

[Mike Ash @MikeAAsh]

Who are our people at the intersection of Sociology and Space at @NASAJPL and @NASA? Asking for a friend.

[Mike Ash @MikeAAsh]

@ThePlanetaryGuy Or the Poole-Bowman 149 Cluster. But I like yours, too.

[Caltech @Caltech]

"Hopfield joined Caltech as faculty in 1980 and, two years later, published his seminal paper in which he applied principles of the brain to computer circuits, creating a neural network able to hold memory and recognize patterns."
https://t.co/mwfc7AhKyq

[Caltech @Caltech]

in the 1920s, Caltech's seismo lab hired a young physicist who became a household name in earthquake science: Charles Richter. HISTORY takes a look back:
https://t.co/WtMeXqBkbF

[Caltech Astro Outreach @CaltechAstro]

Join us next Friday night to hear about AI in astrophysics and what new discoveries are on the horizon. Also, we'll host guided stargazing with telescopes afterwards. Free and open to all. Lecture live-streamed on YouTube.

[Mike Ash @MikeAAsh]

@NASAJPL @AsteroidWatch Good thing they fly by instead of stopping by JPL mission control to rescue other peanuts. IYKYK. 🥜

[NASA JPL @NASAJPL]

The Southern California heat wave may have broken, but fires continue to burn.

Data from NASA’s ECOSTRESS instrument, which measures land temperatures (rather than air temperatures), shows three separate fires on Sept. 10 with some areas – in white – reaching over 300F (159C).

[Fei-Fei Li @drfeifei]

What is a really really hard problem to work on in #AI? My own answer is Spatial Intelligence - a technology that could empower and enable countless possible use cases in creation, design, learning, AR/VR, robotics, and beyond. It’s a real honor that my cofounders @jcjohnss @chlassner @BenMildenhall and I are joined by a formidable team of world class pixel talents to start World Labs to work on this super hard problem that took Mother Nature half a billion years to solve. 🤩

[Mike Ash @MikeAAsh]

@DrChrisCombs We had to rely on Jane’s to obsess over before the DK books with intricate exploded diagrams and artwork became available. #olds

[Indy Autonomous Challenge @IndyAChallenge]

🎓@Caltech joins the Indy Autonomous Challenge!

We are thrilled to announce the California Institute of Technology as the 10th team in the world’s largest autonomous racing program. Welcome to the paddock, CAST Racer team!

👩‍🔬 Leading the charge is team principal, Dr. Soon-Jo Chung, alongside Dr. Fred Hadaegh and Dr. Mory Gharib from Caltech’s cutting-edge Center for Autonomous Systems and Technologies.

🧠 CAST Racer is proudly supported by @beyondlimitsai, a leader in industrial-grade neuro-symbolic hybrid AI platforms. The partnership underscores the commercial and technological potential of the AI driver software being developed and validated through the IAC's AV-24 robotics platform.

🌍 The addition of CAST Racer enriches our community with Caltech’s long-standing tradition of technology innovation in competitive racing environments, enhancing the collective capabilities of all teams involved

📍 Read the full press release here: https://t.co/f48ljGD0MO

[Caltech @Caltech]

Free and open to the public, Caltech's Watson Lectures offer a new opportunity each month to connect with the forefront of research. We hope you will join us this upcoming season!
https://t.co/WKEM4mTbxL

[Mike Ash @MikeAAsh]

@Caltech Experiencing a strong quake on campus is surreal. It hit during our lunch meeting���we took cover under the conference table but almost couldn’t resist the urge to jump out and connect with the seismo teams nearby to learn more!

[Caltech @Caltech]

Today’s earthquake in Southern California reminds us of of our planet's dynamic nature. Explore the causes of these seismic events with insights from Caltech experts. #CaltechScienceExchange
https://t.co/c4OPg6kTQm

[Emerging Technologies Institute @EmergingTechETI]

Now for the last session of the day at #EmergingTechETI Conference is the State of Defense Acquisition Panel with The Hon. Dr. William LaPlante, USD(A&S), The Hon. Andrew Hunter, ASAF/AQ, The Hon. Frank Calvelli, ASAF(SA&I), Young Bang, Principal Deputy, ASA(ALT) & Welcome Remarks from Maj Gen Arnold Punaro, USMC (Ret), NDIA ETI Advisory Board Chair. See full session info at https://t.co/PNQpsZDGt5