Chris White NEC Labs America
Christopher White has served as the President at NEC Laboratories America, Inc. since March 2020, where he leads a team of world-class researchers focusing on diverse topics from sensing to networking to machine learning-based understanding.

Chris has extensive expertise in scientific computing, hierarchical simulation techniques, quantum chemistry, optical networks, optical devices, and acoustic scattering. His research interests include the development of computational models and methods for the simulation and control of interesting physical and digital systems. This has included work in areas ranging from linear scaling quantum chemistry simulations to the design of new optical devices, to the global control of transparent optical mesh networks and to understanding and facilitating the propagation of ideas in organizations. In addition to the management of a team of world-class researchers, his current work focuses on the creation of assisted thinking tools that leverage structural similarity in data with the goal of augmenting human intelligence.

Chris has a Ph.D. in Theoretical Quantum Chemistry from the University of California, Berkeley, and a B.S. and M.S. in Chemistry from Carnegie Mellon University, with a concentration in Computer Science.

Posts

The Evolution of Disciplines: From Experimental Roots to Theoretical Frameworks

Chris White discusses the evolution of scientific disciplines, which often begin with exploration driven by curiosity and experimentation. As fields grow in complexity and cost, they shift to theoretical frameworks that optimize research. This transition is crucial for sustainable progress. Currently, AI and ML remain largely experimental, highlighting the need for theoretical foundations to ensure development.

Multi-Agent Simulator for Carbon Neutrality: The Technology the World Has Been Waiting For

Today, each country, government, and enterprise are urged to take effective action to fight against climate change; however, an efficient method has not been found. Even a way to accurately calculate Scope 3 carbon emissions has yet to be developed. The technology of a multi-agent simulator could be an essential step in solving worldwide challenges. We interviewed the researchers about the details of this technology.

The Industrial Lab Advantage: Delivering on the Expectations of AI | Future of Work News

Our Chris White outlines how Invisible AI transforms our lives and its potential to bring about transformative societal changes, including safer space travel, reliable cell networks, smarter cities, productive factories, and efficient homes. Invisible AI will intelligently anticipate needs, automate tasks, and enhance the human experience.

Chris White Interviewed By Mike Vizard on Techstrong.AI

In this excellent Techstrong.ai videocast, Michael Vizard interviews our Christopher White, President of NEC Labs America, about #AI and its future. They discuss generative AI, its current hype, its potential impact on content creation and the augmentation of human abilities. Chris emphasizes that generative AI systems are not “thinking machines” but tools to enhance human capabilities.

Industrial Labs to Drive Disruptive Innovation for the Fourth Industrial Revolution

While the previous generation of industrial progress brought us new capabilities, efficiencies, and even delight through digital transformation, we’re entering a new era of innovation, opportunity, and disruption: the Fourth Industrial Revolution. What is the Fourth Industrial Revolution?

Meet The Disruptors: NEC’s Chris White On The Five Things You Need To Shake Up Your Industry | Authority Magazine

Read this fantastic interview with our President, Christopher White, with Authority Magazine, as he shares five things you need to shake up your industry based on his experience pushing the envelope in chemistry, computer science, quantum computing, and artificial intelligence. Chris leads our team to conduct disruptive research rather than just incremental research.

Beyond One Model Fits All: A Survey of Domain Specialization for Large Language Models

Large language models (LLMs) have significantly advanced the field of natural language processing (NLP), providing a highly useful, task agnostic foundation for a wide range of applications. The great promise of LLMs as general task solvers motivated people to extend their functionality largely beyond just a “chatbot”, and use it as an assistant or even replacement for domain experts and tools in specific domains such as healthcare, finance, and education. However, directly applying LLMs to solve sophisticated problems in specific domains meets many hurdles, caused by the heterogeneity of domain data, the sophistication of domain knowledge, the uniqueness of domain objectives, and the diversity of the constraints (e.g., various social norms, cultural conformity, religious beliefs, and ethical standards in the domain applications). To fill such a gap, explosively increase research, and practices have been conducted in very recent years on the domain specialization of LLMs, which, however, calls for a comprehensive and systematic review to better summarizes and guide this promising domain. In this survey paper, first, we propose a systematic taxonomy that categorizes the LLM domain specialization techniques based on the accessibility to LLMs and summarizes the framework for all the subcategories as well as their relations and differences to each other. We also present a comprehensive taxonomy of critical application domains that can benefit from specialized LLMs, discussing their practical significance and open challenges. Furthermore, we offer insights into the current research status and future trends in this area.

NEC Labs America Heads to Stanford University’s SystemX Alliance Annual Fall Conference

NEC Labs America’s (NECLA) President Christopher White is attending Stanford University’s SystemX Alliance 2022 Fall Conference this week, where he is meeting with Ph.D. students, industry-leading researchers and business leaders presenting on a wide range of research topics. The annual conference will highlight exciting research in the areas of advanced materials, data analytics, energy and power management, 3D nanoprinting, and photonic and quantum computing, to name but a few!