One of the world’s largest computing companies has recognized three faculty members from the Georgia Tech School of Computer Science (SCS) for their research on scalable, secure, and trustworthy artificial intelligence (AI) and computing systems. 

Google named assistant professors Anand Iyer, Kexin Rong, and Ahmed Saeed as recipients of the 2026 Google ML and Systems Junior Faculty Award. 

The trio was selected by a distinguished group of Google engineers and researchers. Each awardee will receive an unrestricted $100,000 grant to advance their research. 

Iyer’s award recognizes his work developing efficient, reliable AI infrastructure. His research focuses on the systems infrastructure that enables efficient and reliable AI, spanning models with limited hardware, scaling graph learning, and running AI agents dependably. 

He leads the NExt-gen X Systems (NEXS) lab, which builds systems that extract more useful work from limited computational, memory, and network capacity. 

“I am honored to be recognized by Google and grateful to my students in NEXS, whose work this award really reflects,” Iyer said. “The award’s unrestricted nature gives us room to go after the higher-risk questions in AI infrastructure, like how to get more useful work out of limited hardware and how to make AI agents run reliably, before they become everyone’s problem.” 

Rong’s award highlights her success in ML systems and data applications. Her research develops systems and tools that simplify large-scale data analytics by synthesizing techniques from data management, machine learning, and human-computer interaction. 

She leads the Data-to-Insights (D2I) Lab, which builds systems and algorithms for large-scale data analytics. 

“I am honored to receive this recognition from Google,” Rong said. “This award will help us further advance our research on systems for managing, processing, and reusing data for and from AI. I am also excited about the opportunities it opens up for future research collaborations.” 

Saeed’s award supports his ongoing work on scalable computer networks and systems. His research interests span the theory, design, and implementation of scalable computer networks and systems. In addition to this award, Saeed received an NSF CAREER Award earlier this year for his work on data center efficiency. 

He leads the Advanced Networked Systems Research (ANSR) Lab, which builds networked computer systems that are fast, efficient, and sustainable. 

“I’m grateful for this recognition and especially for the freedom this gift provides to explore ambitious, unconventional research directions that might otherwise be difficult to pursue,” Saeed said. 

The Google ML and Systems Junior Faculty Awards were established in 2025 to support early-career research faculty who are pioneering the analysis, design, and implementation of efficient, scalable, secure, and trustworthy computing systems.