Unconventional AI

Congratulations to Unconventional AI founders MeeLan Lee (https://lnkd.in/gYsvXQkw) and Sara Achour (https://lnkd.in/gBwK_DFz) on their recognition by 100 Women in AI. We're grateful for their leadership and their continued contributions to the future of AI.

Most real-world systems are dynamic.  So why do we still treat computation as static? Our latest blog by Sara Achour and Matthew Bull explores computation through motion using gyroscopes, rods, springs, and ordinary differential equations to perform handwritten digit classification. A deep dive into:  • dynamical systems as compute  • differentiable ODE solvers  • physics-inspired machine learning  • emergent computation through interaction Read here: https://lnkd.in/gWPrdmbp

Tomorrow, May 15, is the final day to submit pre-proposals for the Unconventional Grant. Over the past several weeks, we’ve seen proposals spanning: • computation as dynamics • in-memory and in-physics compute • architectures that minimize data movement • new abstractions beyond linear algebra Many converge on the same intuition: meaningful efficiency gains in AI will not come from scaling existing approaches alone, but from fundamentally different ways of representing and computing. We are looking for technically grounded ideas that challenge assumptions across hardware, systems, and learning. We’re not looking for taller ladders to the moon. We’re looking for rockets. Learn more and apply by May 15: https://lnkd.in/g3kcN4fp

Getting to 1000x energy efficiency in AI isn’t about one breakthrough. It’s about solving two hard constraints: 1. Data movement dominates energy 2. Amdahl’s Law caps system-level gains Which means you have to rethink everything: models, hardware, and how they’re designed together. If this kind of problem excites you, you’ll enjoy our latest blog from Unconventional AI Research Fellow Peter McMahon: https://lnkd.in/gE8bF6-5

We are proud to announce that Unconventional AI has been named on the 2026 CB Insights AI 100 list. Find us here: https://lnkd.in/eCTeZx46

Attending #ODSCAIEast today? Join our cofounder Michael Carbin at 2:35 PM ET in the Keynote Room. His Open Data Science Conference (ODSC) presentation, “Nonlinear Dynamics as the Next Substrate for Intelligence,” explores a fundamental idea: we may be building AI on the wrong substrate. The human brain runs on ~20 watts. Today’s AI systems require orders of magnitude more. That gap isn’t just engineering, it’s architectural. Michael will share why moving beyond digital computation toward nonlinear physical dynamics may be key to unlocking truly efficient intelligence.

Digital abstraction has taken us far. It made modern AI possible. But it may also be what’s holding us back. As energy efficiency becomes the defining constraint, it’s worth asking: what happens if we relax the assumptions we’ve built entire systems on? In our latest blog post, Boris Murmann explores the tradeoffs between analog and digital computing, and why the answer isn’t as simple as picking one over the other. Read "Analog is Dead, Long Live Analog" here: https://lnkd.in/gctzWzzQ

We’re hiring people who are endlessly curious, comfortable with discomfort, and drawn to the edge of chaos. If this sounds like you, apply here: http://unconv.ai/careers/

What if computers evolved more like living systems than static machines? If you are rethinking how we architect, scale, and power the next generation of intelligence, this is your final call to secure Early Bird access to RAISE Summit by tomorrow at midnight. We are proud to welcome Sara Achour, Co-founder and Research Fellow at Unconventional AI to RAISE Summit 2026. Unconventional AI is reengineering the foundations of a computer to optimize energy efficiency for AI. By moving beyond the "Von Neumann bottleneck," they are unlocking efficiency levels previously thought impossible in traditional silicon. “We’re going to make compute more efficient the same way that F1 racing teams make race cars more aerodynamic: by building a ‘biology-scale’ model of the intelligence layer in a silicon wind tunnel.” - Unconventional AI Founders Blog. With $475M raised at a $4.5B valuation, Unconventional AI is pushing beyond the limits of traditional silicon design. Sara brings unparalleled technical depth to innovation. She earned her PhD in Computer Science from Massachusetts Institute of Technology and also serves as an Assistant Professor in Stanford University's Computer Science and Electrical Engineering Departments. At RAISE Summit 2026, Sara joins the leaders across the Foundation and Future track, the visionaries architecting the sustainable, scalable infrastructure that will define the next decade of compute. ⏰ Early Bird access ends TOMORROW at midnight. Secure your ticket via the link in the comments 👇 Where visionaries and AI converge. #RAISE2026 #RAISESummit #AIInfrastructure

We’re introducing the Unconventional Grant. A new research grant program supporting bold, unconventional ideas in AI. We’re allocating $500,000 in total funding, awarding up to five $100,000 grants to researchers exploring new paradigms in efficient, scalable, and biologically inspired AI systems. We’re especially interested in ideas that challenge how AI systems are built today, from unconventional circuits and architectures to new approaches in neural networks and theory. Not incremental work. Not safe bets. Ideas that push the field forward. Learn more and apply: https://unconv.ai/grant/