CS Conte Colloquium: Sam Madden, “Databases for All of the World's Bytes or How I Learned to Start Querying and Love AI”

September 8, 2025 - 2:30 PM Eastern Time

Location: DSAI 1069

Title: Databases for All of the World's Bytes, or: How I Learned to Start Querying and Love AI

Date: Monday, September 8, 2025

Time: 2:30–4:00 PM

Locations: DSAI 1069

Description:

Join us for a talk by Dr. Sam Madden, Distinguished Professor at MIT, as he explores how deep learning and generative AI are transforming databases. While relational databases have long excelled at structured data, most of the world’s data remains unstructured. New AI technologies offer the potential to query and understand data across formats like text, images, and video. Dr. Madden will discuss the opportunities and challenges of building AI-powered database systems, focusing on scalability, correctness, and reliability.

About the Speaker:

Sam Madden leads MIT’s Data Systems Group and the Data Science and AI Lab. He is known for pioneering work in databases, including C-Store and TinyDB. He’s an ACM Fellow and recipient of multiple awards for innovation and impact in computing.