Study in US: ASU hackers win $2M at Vegas AI competition

A cohort of researchers, professors, and graduate students from Arizona State University has won $2M at Vegas AI hackers competition.

The world’s largest hacker convention, this year saw nearly 30,000 attendees, including expert programmers, the best cybersecurity professionals, and officials from top government agencies. A team from Arizona State University has won the competition.

The team has 25 people and is named the Shellphish team which includes professors, researchers and students. The team also comprised members from Santa Barbara, the University of California, and Purdue University.

U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA hosted AIxCC competition at DEF CON. The competition aimed at protecting pharmacies, medical devices and hospitals from cyberattacks.

Andrew Carney, DARPA program manager for AIxCC and program manager for resilient systems at ARPA-H, told the Washington Post, “We want to redefine how we secure widely used, critical codebases, because of how ubiquitous open-source is across the critical infrastructure sectors."

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Shellphish team is one of the seven semifinal winners who were selected out of over 40 total entries. They will get $2 million in funds to continue their development work.

Doupé, director of the Center for Cybersecurity and Trusted Foundations, said that these types of AI systems are required for enterprise software.

“Today, a company might hire a team of really good cybersecurity consultants to audit their system. That team will find and patch vulnerabilities. Then they move on to their next project. But who tests the company’s system the next week? Or the week after that?," he said.

5 ASU microelectronics projects win $30M in federal funding

U.S. Department of Defense officials, White House, ASU partners announced that five microelectronics projects of the university have won $30 million in federal funding.

Sally C. Morton, executive vice president of ASU Knowledge Enterprise said, “SWAP Hub, along with our partners, leverages the collective expertise of our dedicated faculty and students at Arizona State University’s Fulton Schools to ensure a vital, sustainable and prosperous future for the region."

Tarun Chhabra, deputy assistant to the president and coordinator for technology and national security said, “Well, $2 billion is, of course, a lot of money in absolute terms, but between the local and national levels, China is pumping hundreds of billion dollars into their chip manufacturing design equipment and materials investments."

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