Luis Ceze is a Brazilian-born American computer scientist, businessman, and academic. Ceze was the CEO and co-founder of OctoAI, a

machine learning Machine learning (ML) is a field of inquiry devoted to understanding and building methods that 'learn', that is, methods that leverage data to improve performance on some set of tasks. It is seen as a part of artificial intelligence. Machine ...

-focused startup acquired by

Nvidia Nvidia CorporationOfficially written as NVIDIA and stylized in its logo as VIDIA with the lowercase "n" the same height as the uppercase "VIDIA"; formerly stylized as VIDIA with a large italicized lowercase "n" on products from the mid 1990s to ...

. Following its acquisition, he became a vice president of AI systems software at Nvidia. Ceze is a professor of

computer science Computer science is the study of computation, automation, and information. Computer science spans theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, information theory, and automation) to practical disciplines (includin ...

at the Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering at the

University of Washington The University of Washington (UW, simply Washington, or informally U-Dub) is a public research university in Seattle, Washington. Founded in 1861, Washington is one of the oldest universities on the West Coast; it was established in Seat ...

. He is known for his work on Apache TVM and bioinspired systems for

data storage Data storage is the recording (storing) of information (data) in a storage medium. Handwriting, phonographic recording, magnetic tape, and optical discs are all examples of storage media. Biological molecules such as RNA and DNA are cons ...

Education

Ceze attended the

University of São Paulo The University of São Paulo ( pt, Universidade de São Paulo, USP) is a public university in the Brazilian state of São Paulo. It is the largest Brazilian public university and the country's most prestigious educational institution, the best ...

, where he received his B. Eng. degree in 2000 and his M. Eng. degree in 2001. from the

. After this, he pursued a doctoral degree in

from the

University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (U of I, Illinois, University of Illinois, or UIUC) is a public land-grant research university in Illinois in the twin cities of Champaign and Urbana. It is the flagship institution of the Univers ...

, advised by

Josep Torrellas Josep Torrellas (born 1963, Montblanc, Spain) is Professor and Willett Faculty Scholar in the Department of Computer Science and a research faculty for the Universal Parallel Computing Research Center at the University of Illinois Urbana–Champ ...

. He received his Ph.D in 2007 with a thesis titled ''Bulk Operation and Data Coloring for Multiprocessor Programmability''.

Career

OctoAI

In 2019, Ceze founded OctoML, a startup aimed at optimizing

deployments. OctoML launched OctoAI, a generative AI product, in June 2023. The company itself changed its name to OctoAI by January 2024, with Ceze explaining that it was renamed to "eliminate potential confusion between our product and corporate name". He stated that OctoAI had thousands of users in a January 2024 statement. In June 2024, OctoAI launched OctoStack, a product designed to help customers customize AI models. In September 2024, ''The Information'' reported that

has considered an acquisition of OctoAI for $165 million. Nvidia went on to acquire OctoAI on September 25. Following OctoAI's acquisition, Ceze became a vice president of AI systems software at Nvidia, and remained in his position at the University of Washington.

Other ventures

In 2008, Ceze cofounded Corensic after spinning it off from the University of Washington. The startup was acquired by

F5 Networks F5, Inc. is an American technology company specializing in application security, multi-cloud management, online fraud prevention, application delivery networking (ADN), application availability & performance, network security, and access & autho ...

in 2012. In 2018, he joined

Madrona Venture Group Madrona Venture Group is an American venture capital firm, founded in 1995 and based in Seattle, Washington. Madrona specializes in seed, startup, Series A and early stage investments. Company Madrona was founded in 1995 by Tom Alberg, Paul G ...

as a venture partner.

Awards

NSF Career Award The National Science Foundation CAREER awards, presented by the National Science Foundation (NSF), are in support of junior faculty who exemplify the role of teacher-scholars through research and education, and the integration of these endeavors ...

(2009) *

Sloan Research Fellowship The Sloan Research Fellowships are awarded annually by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation since 1955 to "provide support and recognition to early-career scientists and scholars". This program is one of the oldest of its kind in the United States. ...

(2010) * IEEE TCCA Young Computer Architect Award (2013) *

Maurice Wilkes Award The Association for Computing Machinery SIGARCH Maurice Wilkes Award is given annually for outstanding contribution to computer architecture by a young computer scientist or engineer; "young" defined as having a career that started within the last 2 ...

(2020) *

ACM Fellow ACM or A.C.M. may refer to: Aviation * AGM-129 ACM, 1990–2012 USAF cruise missile * Air chief marshal * Air combat manoeuvring or dogfighting * Air cycle machine * Arica Airport (Colombia) (IATA: ACM), in Arica, Amazonas, Colombia Computing ...

(2022)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ceze, Luis Living people People from São Paulo University of São Paulo alumni University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign alumni University of Washington Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering faculty 2022 fellows of the Association for Computing Machinery Sloan Research Fellows Year of birth missing (living people) Maurice Wilkes Award winners Brazilian emigrants to the United States Brazilian engineers