Priyesh Shukla on insect-sized drones and life on the Edge

IIITH’s Prof. Priyesh Shukla, a Ph.D from the University of Illinois talks about exciting work on insect-sized drones and life on the Edge. He brings youthful energy and industrial R&D experience to his work in sustainable AI and Quantum Computing Systems at IIITH’s Center for VLSI and Embedded Systems Technology and Computer Systems Group.

Drone’s eye view
Dr. Priyesh Shukla’s background in R&D work, as Chief Engineer at Bengaluru-based Samsung Research, Bose Research-Massachusetts, Qualcomm-San Diego and Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) CEERI-Pilani makes him ideally suited to follow his passion in sustainable computing systems for artificial intelligence and quantum computing at IIIT Hyderabad.

Building blocks BIT by bit
With a Bachelors in Electrical and Electronics Engineering (2015) and Masters in Microelectronics from BITS-Pilani (2017), he went on to acquire his Ph.D in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of Illinois at Chicago (2022).  His research interests lie in Sustainable Computing, Efficient AI Processing at Edge and Cloud, Generative AI Acceleration, Intelligent and Secure Healthcare Systems, Compute-in-Memory, RISC-V HW-SW Ecosystem, Probabilistic AI Systems, Edge Robotics, Next-Gen Computing – Quantum circuits and systems, 6G architecture and 3D Vision Systems.

Priyesh got exposed to the entire genre of research during his tenure at BITS Pilani. He explains, “I was part of the EEE dept. at BITS-Pilani and Central Electronics Engineering Research Institute (CSIR-CEERI, Pilani), where I started my research in mixed signal circuits and systems for MEMS sensors, structural health monitoring on FPGAs for wireless communication between sensor nodes, and Green’s function formalism in device physics. Fresh out of college, I joined Qualcomm Bangalore as Standard Cell Design Engineer for their Bluetooth Modems and Snapdragon SoCs, and got first exposure to AI/ML tools for Electronic Design Automation that directed my curiosity towards researching and developing efficient AI processing systems.”

Ph.D and insect-sized drones in Chicago
It was his advisor Dr. Amit Ranjan Trivedi’s guidance that catalyzed his Ph.D in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of Illinois at Chicago. “I specifically worked on developing the brain (AI chip) of insect-sized drones, the size of a rupee coin, a very powerful and novel application especially in defense industry and search and rescue during hazards”, observes Priyesh who worked on developing efficient in-memory computing circuits and architectures for probabilistic (Bayesian) machine learning for uncertainty-aware prediction outcomes at the Edge. 

About his most significant collaborations, he says, “While our University of Washington counterparts worked on the mechanical and aero dynamical aspects of the insect-drone design, we developed AI processing hardware for it.  Another fruitful collaboration with South Korea’s Gachon University was on an efficient Gaussian transistor for uncertainty-aware (Bayesian) AI processing that translated into publication in the prestigious Nature Communications. This was a great project that we leveraged to efficiently process robotic algorithms intelligently at the edge. With Bose Corporation at Massachusetts, I have collaborated on accelerating audio processing algorithms on edge AI hardware.”.

Homeward Bound and reignited passion for academic research
Priyesh moved back to India to join Samsung Research-Bengaluru as chief engineer at Advanced Research Group. He worked on RISC-V software and architectures to develop AI DSPs for Samsung Displays and next generation wireless. While the two-and-a-half-year stint gave him excellent corporate R&D experience, “my heart was in academic research that had more freedom to focus on the foundations of problems and collaborate globally, with folks from industry and academia.”

IIITH campus – a place called home
After exploring options from Singapore to IITs, Priyesh finally found what he sought at IIIT Hyderabad. “When I moved back, one big concern was whether I would find high academic and research standards and flexible environment to function. That was wonderfully addressed in IIITH, thanks to directors and deans who have been instrumental in ensuring and maintaining a strong focus on translational research. The concept of research centers rather than departments, full freedom for multidisciplinary research collaboration and the exceptional caliber of faculties, attracted me. I have been very fortunate that with everyone’s support and blessings, I bagged good projects/collaborations and bright students, right off the bat. This has been one of the best decisions in my life. It is nothing sentimental or exaggerated. In this world nothing comes perfect and while living with imperfections, we can expand whatever is good and that is what happens here. Issues are collectively resolved and that is a very good spirit that I found to be very beautiful at the Institute”, says the researcher.

What stays in one’s memory are usually interpersonal interactions and for Priyesh Shukla, it was the heartwarming new faculty orientation at a resort and the student poster presentation at KRB lounge that came out of a course project. The excitement and creative skills of the undergraduate students and the oratory talents that emerged during their poster presentations on Responsible and safe AI was all-round, a very fulfilling experience.

Drones and efficient energy solutions
Priyesh is currently working on novel AI chips for micro-drone navigation and multimodal AI acceleration. “Since it is a very small device, we are designing an AI chip with in-memory computing based technology; to store as well as process data within memory so that data movement related bandwidth/energy bottleneck is mitigated.” With the proliferation of AI into everyday life, hackers everywhere are attacking at the very core of AI systems, in the servers and edge devices. At the hardware level, how can we add security layers to keep AI processing and applications safe? That’s another area of his interest, to ensure security along with sustainability and robustness in AI systems.

“We are currently working on probabilistic AI HW-SW for confidence-aware decision making in self-driving cars, robotic surgeries, co-founding a stealth startup at the impactful intersection of healthcare, AI and edge computing”, he adds. His course on Hardware for Artificial Intelligence has gained a lot of popularity and should be released through the online program shortly.

 “I specialize in developing domain-specific architectures and systems for artificial intelligence and quantum computing. Because of the complex nature of algorithms, we need specialized hardware that is energy-efficient, cost-efficient, secure, reliable and robust”. This requires a very unique disruptive compute paradigm, different from traditional CPUs or GPUs. For instance, while big AI computers are now defeating world champions in various games, the giant GPU clusters run on power that costs $5000-7000 per hour. With everyone running AI on their systems, cost-effective, energy-efficient solutions are imperative, especially on demand across industries and scientific institutions. For example, one major selling point for smartphones is its battery life; which would drain faster if using AI algorithms. “If we build an AI processing system which drains battery slower, industries will snap it up! The focus is also on bringing things down to the edge such as on the phone, wearables and other devices, rather than relying on servers especially when data privacy and latency is concerning”, observes Priyesh.

Awards, patents, publications and future work
Among the honors and awards received, the more memorable ones for Priyesh were the 2022 IEEE AICAS Best Paper award, the Peter and Deborah Wexler Award (2018-2019) from the University of Illinois as well as scholastic merit awards from the state government and research awards from BITS Pilani. He has two patent contributions on in-memory computing, apart from another patent contribution filed during his tenure at Samsung Research.

“In the next five to ten years, quantum computing will play an appreciable role in the products we use and my vision is to develop a very robust quantum computing system and efficient hardware software stack to solve various hard problems quickly”, says Priyesh who has 20 publications and is on the conference technical program committee of ICASSP, VLSID, ICEdge, IJCNN, ISCAS and member of IEEE/ACM.

“Among my conference and personal travels, the most enjoyable have been visits to Japan, Europe, Korea and parts of the US and of course India. But the best place has been my grandparents’ serene and green villages in Chhattisgarh.  We would spend two months of summer vacations in my grandmother’s beautiful homestead, with its verandahs that opened out onto agricultural fields. The dips in the village lake and the peaceful rural life are cherished moments for me”.

It took a village
Hailing from Bilaspur in Chhattisgarh, Priyesh went through standard schooling in Korba, where his father worked in the thermal power plant. His quest for independence took him to a Bhilai-based boarding school in Class nine where he soon became a class topper and participated in sports activities like cricket, football, badminton and swimming. “I am proficient in a few musical instruments; the keyboard/harmonium since school days, guitar in college and later switched to the classical percussion – Mridangam when I came across it at the music room at BITS Pilani”.

Growing up in a traditional family set up, the youngster was exposed to anecdotes from ancient scriptural texts, historical events, and Ram Lila in the village which was the sweet part of the cultural ecosystem for him. Yoga and meditation were childhood and college routines that stood him well in adult life, especially in competitive cum distractive college and work environments.

Priyesh and his wife Dr. Dewanshi Rajput Shukla moved into the IIITH campus in April 2025 and have been enjoying the sights and sounds of the greens around. “Right now, life is about family, research, teaching, and repeat.  Happiness is in listening to classical tunes and practicing sargam on wood wind instruments like the flute, that is blissful and most relaxing”.