Celebrating a Milestone at IMS 2026: The First IEEE HART Intersociety Panel

 

The 2026 International Microwave Symposium (IMS) in Boston, MA, served as the backdrop for the first intersociety technology panel organized and hosted by the IEEE HART (Hardware, AI, Research & Training) initiative.

Centered around the initiative’s core guiding philosophy, the panel was aptly titled “AI for Hardware and Hardware for AI.” This landmark session was presented to a room that was near capacity, and encapsulated HART’s mission to foster cross-sectoral collaboration, bringing together top minds to address the critical challenges of building the physical technology needed to power the future of artificial intelligence. Backed by 18 participating IEEE Societies and Councils and a growing team of 50+ volunteers, this panel represented a leap forward in multidisciplinary engineering.

 

The Experts Behind the Panel

The session was organized and co-chaired by Nuno Borges Carvalho (Universidade de Aveiro) and Ke Wu (Polytechnique Montréal), who assembled a powerhouse lineup of six panelists spanning diverse disciplines and industries.

HART panelistsThe combined presentations from the panel highlight the incredible breadth of knowledge shared during the session:

  • Raymond Chik (Hepzibah AI) tackled the intersection of physical reality and AI ambition in his presentation, “Bridging Ambition and Deployment.” He emphasized that “Co-design is the bridge,” exploring critical industry challenges like analog/mixed-signal IC design, AI compute hardware, and energy-efficient inference.
  • Costa Sarris (University of Toronto) dove deep into the fundamental and applied aspects of Computational Electromagnetics (CEM) and scientific machine learning. He demonstrated how deep learning architectures—such as physics-informed DeepONet—can be trained to approximate the curl operator, solve Maxwell’s equations, model time-domain EM fields, and conduct uncertainty quantification studies.
  • Branislav Notaros (Colorado State University) showcased the incredible versatility of these technologies with his presentation on “Utilizing the Power of AI and ML in Applied EM.” His examples demonstrated how AI is revolutionizing everything from standard antenna design to life-saving applications like MRI, orthopaedic diagnostics, and the remote sensing of snow.
  • Vesna Sossi (The University of British Columbia), expanded the conversation to computer applications in nuclear and plasma science. She detailed the crucial hardware and software aspects of data acquisition, analysis, storage, and control within nuclear and plasma science disciplines.
  • Rakesh Kumar (UCSD) and Cecilia Metra (University of Bologna) rounded out the exceptional panel, bringing their respective cross-disciplinary expertise to the table to further connect the distinct worlds of artificial intelligence and hardware engineering.

 

A Catalyst for the Future

IMS 2026This highly successful debut at IMS 2026 is an example of the HART intersociety technology panel program’s ultimate goal: to strengthen collaborations across IEEE entities and lead multidisciplinary, cross-sectorial activities.

This pilot edition featured expertise from the following IEEE entities:

  • IEEE Microwave Theory and Technology Society (MTT-S)
  • IEEE Nuclear and Plasma Sciences Society (NPSS)
  • IEEE Antennas and Propagation Society (AP-S)
  • IEEE Computer Society
  • IEEE Future Directions
  • IEEE Solid-State Circuits Society (SSCS)
  • IEEE AI Coalition

Future HART intersociety technology panels will broaden this scope to include more technical fields of interest, and will be embedded within flagship conferences of the IEEE societies and councils that participate in HART.

 

Resources

IMS 2026 HART Panel Master Slides (PDF, 6MB)