ADVANCED COMPUTING :

Artificial Intelligence & Cybersecurity 

Chair: Dr. Mounir HAHAD (USA)

1-Program Description

Advances in computing are at break-neck speed and every year sees an onslaught of new technologies that present both opportunities and risks. There is no doubt that artificial intelligence will give those nations which embrace it early a clear advantage over those that do not harness it early. AI presents many opportunities to accelerate development in many disciplines, including industrial manufacturing applications, agriculture, energy, health, security, etc.

Similarly, many threat actors, be it nation state actors or criminal organizations, are absorbing technological advances to identify new threat vectors and weaponize them against a multitude of attack surfaces in the cyber space. It is important for every nation and organization to stay abreast of the threat landscape, understand its weaknesses and put in place defensive plans to thwart any cyberattack that could destabilize an entity, an industry or an entire country

2-Covered topics

The main topics of the program will cover:

• Recent advances in artificial intelligence, machine learning and deep learning

•  Focused review of Large Language Models, and Generative AI specifically (Pretrained models like ChatGPT), with emphasis on open source models and options for tuning your own models.

• Review of the cyber threat landscape

• Adversarial attacks on AI and securing LLM inference models

• Operationalizing Threat Intelligence for Cyber Defense

• The role of quantum computing in securing the future of communication

3-Desired Learning Outcomes

Participants will learn about where the AI field is headed and what are the recent advances as we all as the open research areas. They will learn about practical applications of AI, mostly in the cybersecurity realm but also in other disciplines like bio and health. They will also learn about tuning generative AI models, and how they can be put to practice securely. Participants will also learn about the most recent cyber-attacks and potential attacks on LLMs.

4-Who Should Attend the Course?

Graduate students, researchers, professors and all motivated people in the field of computer science, cybersecurity or other fields where AI is the next frontier, like drug design, health condition diagnosis, smart cities and any field where processing of large data sets helps gain insights in to the data.