Federal Project Grant Award Summary

Wayne State University received a $357,954 Project Grant from the National Science Foundation's Division of Information and Intelligent Systems under the Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) program (CFDA 47.070), effective May 1, 2026 through April 30, 2031. This CAREER award supports research on in-network graphics processing unit (GPU) integration for vision-inspired generative inference, which aims to embed high-performance computing directly into network routers to enable real-time data analysis at the network core. The project pursues three primary technical thrusts: developing optimized memory management techniques between routers and GPUs for high-throughput artificial intelligence inference; implementing vision-based sketching approaches to transform network traffic into vectorized formats at line rate; and deploying specialized generative models for advanced threat detection and proactive network defense.

Beyond the core research objectives, the project delivers educational and open-source components designed to build workforce capacity in practical artificial intelligence design and secure networking. Deliverables include open-source designs, tools, and workloads that enable the academic community to develop deployable intelligent systems beyond simulation environments. The research bridges artificial intelligence and network infrastructure domains, supporting the NSF's broader mission to advance research cyberinfrastructure and accelerate discovery through computing and information science innovation.