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Distinguished Lecture: Gordon Brebner

Interview with Gordon Brebner

As part of the 60 years of computer science and AI celebration, distinguished researchers from both disciplines have been invited to visit the School of Informatics. We have asked them to tell us about their research. Gordon Brebner is a Senior Fellow at AMD, Honorary Professor at the School of Informatics.

Title: Computer Communication: The Glamour of Plumbing

Lecture abstract

The systems that underpin everyday computing and Internet access, and leading-edge Artificial Intelligence and High-Performance Computing, rely upon largely unseen plumbing that connects everything together via communication channels. As processor clock rates have stagnated, the speed of these channels continues to increase apace, reflecting the increasing volume, velocity and variety of information sharing over diverse parallel and distributed architectures. This means that communication has become as important as computation, and indeed it has resulted in a blurring of the lines between the two activities. This talk will discuss the current frontiers of networking and will particularly focus on treating communication as a first-class citizen, that is, as a programmable artefact with its own domain-specific architectures and languages. It will reflect on over four decades of experience rooted in, and intertwined with, the history of Informatics at Edinburgh: from the earliest in-house packet switching networks, through programmable networking, to the theory of concurrency.

Speaker's bio

Gordon Brebner is a Senior Fellow at AMD. He contributes to corporate vision and strategy in the general area of networking and distributed systems. As a research leader in AMD Research and Advanced Development, he has been investigating novel forms of programmability in high-performance, low-latency, and trustworthy communication networks, and translating results into successful products with an emphasis on ease of use through a particular focus on domain-specific languages and architectures. Most recently, this led to the Xilinx (acquired by AMD in 2022) family of P4-programmable SmartNIC products. Gordon worked at the University of Edinburgh until moving to Silicon Valley in 2002, with roles including Head of the Department of Computer Science and Director of the Institute for Computing Systems Architecture. He has a continuing connection with the School of Informatics as an Honorary Professor.