It’s the age of AI. With that comes the hopes—and the fears—of what this technology holds for the future.

For Muhammad Adnan, a PhD candidate in UBC’s Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE), it’s definitely about the hope.

“I’m more an optimistic person about the future of the AI tech industry,” says Muhammad. “There will always be challenges, but we should work together to solve those challenges.”

His journey to UBC Vancouver marked a pivotal step in pursuing his passion for AI—particularly in understanding its underlying mechanisms and how to optimize them for performance, security, and, most importantly, power efficiency.

“Based on a study back in 2019, estimates show the energy consumed by operating information and computing technologies (ICT) accounts for 2% of worldwide carbon emissions, half that of the aviation industry. And by now this number has reached around 3%.,” says Muhammad.

Muhammad’s work at the ECE addresses this challenge by developing smart optimizations for AI applications. By reducing the runtime of these applications, these optimizations contribute to lowering data center energy consumption and consequently, their environmental impact and carbon emissions.

“When we reduce the end-to-end runtime for large models, we are also reducing the end-to-end power consumption,” says Muhammad. “That’s how the AI system speed-up can help us as a society.”

Beyond efficiency, Muhammad recognizes the equal importance of safety and dependability for AI: “Security, reliability and optimization must move forward together hand in hand,” says Muhammad. “We cannot really focus on one thing and postpone the other things for the future.”

While studying as an undergraduate in Pakistan, Muhammad developed a strong interest in High Performance Computing, sparked by the growing computational requirements of evolving application. This passion led him to pursue graduate studies at UBC.

He was particularly drawn to UBC by the Computer and Systems Research Group within the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, as well as the opportunity to work with his advisor, Professor Prashant Nair—an expert in the memory systems with a focus on Machine Learning, Security, and Quantum Computing.

“We have been working together since 2019—I was kind of his first student,” says Muhammad. “Prof. Nair had just joined as a new faculty at UBC, moving from IBM T.J. Watson Research Center, so our energies and interests really aligned, which helped a lot.”

Throughout his time at UBC, Muhammad has received several major scholarships and fellowships that have significantly shaped his academic journey. These forms of support, including multi-year funding and departmental assistance, have allowed him to focus more deeply on his research. His story is one of many that highlight the transformative impact financial support can have on students.

“Getting this funding for three years really helped me to pursue certain research areas that might not have been possible otherwise.”

Looking ahead, Muhammad is optimistic, envisioning AI becoming an integral part of everyday life—and is hopeful its growth will be guided by thoughtful and effective regulations to ensure its benefits are widely shared.

“I think we are starting a totally new era in terms of AI and machine learning—similar to back in 2000, when we started the dot com era when the internet was becoming a really big thing,” he says.

Another thing that stands out to Muhammad is the way donors have thoughtfully focused their support on graduate students. He sees their contributions as both generous and strategic, helping passionate researchers pursue their goals and attracting new talent to graduate studies.

“I really admire the overall thought process that donors have put into funding grad students specifically,” he says.