Keynote Speaker
August 5 (Wednesday)
Dr. Matthew Marge is a Program Manager in DARPA’s Information Processing Techniques Office (IPTO), where he creates and leads research programs in frontier AI. He is the architect of the AI Forge program, a major initiative focused on advancing pre-competitive AI research to meet critical national security challenges and accelerating the adoption of these innovations by industry and federal agencies. Prior to DARPA, his research at the DEVCOM Army Research Laboratory focused on conversational AI and human-robot interaction. He holds a Ph.D. and an M.S. from the Language Technologies Institute within Carnegie Mellon University’s School of Computer Science, an M.S. in Artificial Intelligence from the University of Edinburgh, and a B.S. in Computer Science and Applied Mathematics & Statistics from Stony Brook University.
Frontier AI for National Security: The AI Forge Program
This talk introduces the DARPA-NSF-CAISI AI Forge program, a strategic public-private partnership designed to accelerate breakthroughs in AI for national security. We will explore the program’s three core technical thrusts of AI interpretability, AI control, and adversarial robustness, and discuss the critical need for moving beyond opaque, “black box” models. The presentation will highlight how AI Forge bridges the gap between frontier AI companies, university researchers, and government stakeholders to develop foundational capabilities that are resilient, auditable, and trusted under critical conditions.