The CSAIL Forum event series is hosted by Professor Daniela Rus, CSAIL Director. This virtual series was created to inspire conversation, share insights, and shape the future of computer science and artificial intelligence. Registration is required.
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Speaker: Mohammad Alizadeh, NEC Professor of Software Science and Engineering
Date/time: Tuesday 12:00-1:00 EST, December 9, 2025
Virtual via Zoom: Registration required
Title: Glia: A Human-Inspired AI for Automated Systems Design and Optimization
Abstract:
Can an AI autonomously design mechanisms for computer systems on par with the creativity and reasoning of human experts? In this talk, I'll introduce Glia, an AI architecture for automated systems design that uses large language models (LLMs) in a human-inspired, multi-agent workflow. Each agent specializes in reasoning, experimentation, and analysis, collaborating through an evaluation framework that grounds abstract reasoning in empirical feedback. Unlike prior ML-for-systems methods that optimize black-box policies, Glia generates interpretable designs and exposes its reasoning process. When applied to a distributed GPU cluster for LLM inference, it produces new algorithms for request routing, scheduling, and auto-scaling that perform at human-expert levels in significantly less time, while yielding novel insights into workload behavior. Our results suggest that by combining reasoning LLMs with structured experimentation, an AI can produce creative and understandable designs for complex systems problems.
Bio:
Mohammad Alizadeh is the NEC Professor of Software Science and Engineering at MIT EECS and a principal investigator in CSAIL. His current research focuses on leveraging AI for automated system design and optimization, intelligent decision-making, and system simulation. Mohammad's past research on datacenter networks led to protocols now implemented in commercial operating systems and switching products, and deployed by large datacenter operators. Mohammad's work has been recognized with numerous awards, including the ACM Grace Murray Hopper Award, Microsoft Research Faculty Fellowship, VMware Systems Research Award, SIGCOMM Rising Star Award, SIGCOMM Test of Time Award, and multiple best paper awards. He earned his MS and PhD in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University and his BS from Sharif University of Technology. Before joining MIT EECS in 2015, he worked at Insieme Networks and Cisco Systems.
