Science x AI Summit 2026 (UCLA)
October 16, 2026 · UCLA
Co-organized by SAIR Foundation, UCLA, UCLA Samueli School of Engineering, and UCLA Division of Physical Sciences.
The Science x AI Summit at UCLA is SAIR's Los Angeles convening, hosted in partnership with UCLA, where university research meets the builders, industry partners, and investors who turn it
into companies. It brings students, faculty, and the wider campus ecosystem together with capital, compute, and mentorship, and gathers UCLA, its neighboring institutions, and the LA
technology community in one place.
On October 16, the Summit brings scientists, builders, industry, and investors to campus for a day of keynotes, fireside chats, and panels on how frontier research becomes companies,
closing with a networking reception from 5:00 PM to 7:00 PM. All times are Pacific Time (PDT). The same day as the Summit, the Center hosts the inaugural
AI Agent Gaming Competition, organized by the UCLA Trustworthy AI Lab, launching the
Center’s hands-on program with a live competition of autonomous agents across a range of gaming environments.
Agenda
Main Event
- 8:00 AM — Check-in & Networking
- 9:00 AM - 9:20 AM — Welcome Remarks — Chuck Ng (Co-Founder of SAIR Foundation) — Ah-Hyung “Alissa” Park (UCLA) — Guang Cheng (UCLA)
- 9:20 AM - 9:40 AM — Keynote — Terence Tao (UCLA)
- 9:40 AM - 10:05 AM — Keynote — Yu Deng (Fields Medalist)
- 10:05 AM - 10:15 AM — Keynote — Peter L.
- 10:15 AM - 10:25 AM — Short Break
- 10:25 AM - 10:45 AM — Keynote — Prabhakar Raghavan (Chief Technologist at Google)
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10:45 AM - 11:10 AM — MIT, Nebius, UCLA: Lessons from a Founder's Full Circle — Presented by Nebius — Moderator: Jeffrey Chernick — Ryan Wang (Incoming Assistant Professor, UCLA,
Founder, Eigen AI (acquired by Nebius))
- 11:10 AM - 11:25 AM — Short Break
- 11:25 AM - 11:35 AM — Keynote: Introduction to the SAIR Prize — Barry Barish
- 11:35 AM - 11:55 AM — Keynote — Ben Fok
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11:55 AM - 12:30 PM — Panel Discussion: The Founder Playbook: What It Takes to Build an AI Company Today — Presented by DLA Piper — Moderator: Noah Crousore (Associate at DLA Piper,
Emerging Growth and Venture Capital) — Zach Rash (Coco Robotics) — Deniz Kent (Prolific) — Enass Abo-Hamed MBE (CertusAI) — Raj Singh (Purpose)
- 12:30 PM - 1:00 PM — Lunch
- 1:00 PM - 1:20 PM — Keynote — Patrick Soon-Shiong
- 1:20 PM - 1:40 PM — Keynote — Po-Shen Loh
- 1:40 PM - 2:00 PM — Keynote: Measuring AI capabilities in Research Mathematics — Mohammed Abouzaid (Professor of Mathematics, Stanford University)
- 2:00 PM - 2:20 PM — Fireside Chat: Science at Google Scale — Host: Scott Clark — Yossi Matias (VP and Head of Google Research)
- 2:20 PM - 2:30 PM — Short Break
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2:30 PM - 3:20 PM — Panel: From Frontier Labs to the Research Bench: How Industry Is Building for Science — Moderator: Amit Gupta (Partner at SNR, Co-Founder of Frontier/1) — Fred Sala
(Chief Scientist at Snorkel AI, Assistant Professor of Computer Sciences at the University of Wisconsin–Madison) — Sudipta Sengupta (Amazon VP of AI for Science) — Ali Khademhosseini —
Maxime Labonne (Liquid AI) — Bolei Zhou (UCLA, Coco Robotics)
- 3:20 PM - 3:40 PM — Short Break
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3:40 PM - 4:00 PM — Fireside Chat: How a Trillion-Dollar Company Backs Research-Led Founders — Presented by Samsung Next — Host: Frank Meehan (Frontier/1) — David Lee (Samsung Next)
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4:00 PM - 4:40 PM — Panel: Southern California's Moment: Universities, Capital, and the Region's AI Future — Presented by UBS — Moderator: Chuck Ng — Wei Wang (UCLA) — Amir Naiberg
(UCLA) — Gaurav Sukhatme (USC) — Peter Atkinson (Dean of the College of Natural & Agricultural Sciences and Professor of Genetics, UC Riverside)
- 5:00 PM - 7:00 PM — Networking Reception — Sponsored by Talaria Scientific
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