NTT Research, Inc., a division of NTT (TYO:9432), today announced plans to hold the NTT Research Berkeley Summit on March 19-20, 2020, in Berkeley, California. The two-day event, which will take place at the University Club atop Memorial Stadium on the UC Berkeley campus, will feature talks involving cryptography and blockchain, quantum information processing, and healthcare AI and biosensors. Talks on Day 1 will center on the theme of “Envisioning Technology’s Future.” Day 2 will include deep dives suited for advanced audiences. The event will also present a lecture on US-Japan relations and provide a unique interview experience for attendees interested in open positions at NTT Research.
Keynoting the event on March 19 is Daniel Okimoto, a senior fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI), director emeritus and co-founder of the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia/Pacific Research Center (APARC), and a professor of political science at Stanford University. A specialist on the political economy of Japan, Professor Okimoto will speak on US-Japan relations. Other confirmed speakers include:
Shafi Goldwasser: Director of the Simons Institute for the Theory of Computing, and a professor of computer science at UC Berkeley. She is also the RSA Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at MIT, and a professor of computer science and applied mathematics at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel. She was the recipient of the ACM Turing Award for 2012 and has received numerous other academic honors.
Peter Fitzgerald: Director of the Center for Cardiovascular Technology and director of the Cardiovascular Core Analysis Laboratory (CCAL) at Stanford University Medical School. He is a professor in both the departments of medicine and engineering at Stanford. Dr. Fitzgerald has led or participated in over 100 clinical trials, published over 350 manuscripts or chapters, and has been the principal or founder of 15 medical device companies.
Dominic Williams: President and chief scientist, DFINITY. He is a crypto theoretician and entrepreneur. His recent research includes Threshold Relay and Prism Coin (PSC) chains, Validation Towers and Trees, and Unique State Copy (USC) IDs, and he proposes new ideas such as “The 3 E’s of Sybil Resistance.” Previously, he ran a venture-backed, massively multiplayer online (MMO) game using his own distributed systems that hosted millions of users.
“We are excited about hearing from researchers, innovators and academics, as well as showcasing the work of our labs,” said Kazuhiro Gomi, President and CEO of NTT Research. “Basic research cannot thrive in a vacuum, and we believe this event is an excellent opportunity – at a spectacular venue – to learn from and interact with pioneers, practitioners and students in these critically important fields of study.”
Launched in July 2019 in Palo Alto, NTT Research consists of a Cryptography and Information Security (CIS) Lab, a Physics and Informatics (PHI) Lab, and a Medical and Health Informatics (MEI) Lab. NTT Research conducts in-house research and collaborates with other research organizations. It has entered an Industrial Partnership with the Simons Institute at UC Berkeley; set up joint research agreements with six universities (CalTech, Cornell, Michigan, MIT, Stanford and Swinburne), one US Federal Agency (NASA’s Ames Research Center) and one private quantum computing software company (1QBit); and reached another joint research agreement with the Technical University of Munich (TUM).
The entire NTT Research team of scientists will be on-site, including President and CEO Gomi, along with the heads of the three labs: Yoshihisa Yamamoto (PHI Lab), Tatsuaki Okamoto (CIS Lab), and Hitonobu Tomoike (MEI Lab). In addition, they will be joined by global leaders from NTT, including NTT Head of R&D Katsuhiko Kawazoe.
NTT Research has already hired more than 20 scientists, about half of whom are university professors and senior researchers. The organization plans to move to a facility in Sunnyvale in mid-2020 to accommodate a growing number of staff. The ultimate target for the organization is about 50 scientists. At the NTT Research Berkeley Summit, qualified candidates will have the opportunity to experience an informational interview with a renowned scientist from the past.
To attend this unique event and engage with some of the world’s leading scientists in their respective fields of inquiry, please visit the NTT Research Berkeley Summit registration page. The event is open to the public, but space is limited.
Qualified members of the press and analyst community, please RSVP to Barrett Adair at [email protected].
About NTT Research
NTT Research opened its Palo Alto offices in July 2019 as a new Silicon Valley startup to conduct basic research and advance technologies that promote positive change for humankind. Currently, three labs are housed at NTT Research: the Physics and Information Science (PHI) Lab, the Cryptography and Information Security (CIS) Lab, and the Medical and Health Informatics (MEI) Lab. The organization aims to upgrade reality in three areas: 1) quantum information, neuro-science and photonics; 2) cryptographic and information security; and 3) medical and health informatics. NTT Research is part of NTT, a global technology and business solutions provider with an annual R&D budget of $3.6 billion.