Stanford SystemX seeks to make information technologies even more pervasive

image courtesy of Poon Lab, Stanford Engineering
Mon, 03/09/2015

The university that pioneered research collaborations between academia and industry has expanded from a device-driven to a systems-level view of how to ignite innovation.

The shift involves a change in name and philosophy at what had been the Stanford Center for Integrated Systems (CIS).

Since the late 1970s, CIS had enabled Stanford researchers to work with industry counterparts to improve semiconductors, software, computers and other technologies. CIS helped create the global networks and mobile devices that put technology in our pockets.

Now, SystemX researchers are working on the next killer applications – the data center of tomorrow, the self-driving car, the smartphones with artificial intelligence built in and next-generation biomedical devices, among others.

Bringing these applications to fruition will require new materials and power sources, novel hardware and software, and coordination of these technologies through reliable control networks.

Stanford President John Hennessy, whose research helped revolutionize computing during the 1980s, describes this systems-level approach as the "technology stack."

"For 30 years, CIS was the model of industry-university partnership to support advanced research in microelectronics," Hennessy said. "SystemX is updating that model to spur innovation in what we call the technology stack and open up new possibilities for sensing, communication and computing technologies."

To highlight this change Stanford has rechristened CIS as the SystemX Alliance.

 

Read the full Stanford Report article