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Hanqing Zhu

Chinese Name

University of Texas at Austin

Email  /  Google Scholar  /  Github  /  CV

About Me

I am a final-year Ph.D. candidate in Electrical Computer Engineering at University of Texas at Austin, under the supervision of Prof. David Z. Pan (Fellow of ACM, IEEE, SPIE) and Prof. Ray T. Chen (Fellow of NAI, IEEE, OSA, SPIE). I work closely with Prof. Zhangyang "Atlas" Wang on efficient AI algorithms at UT Austin and Prof. Jiaqi Gu on emerging ML hardware at ASU.

Previously, I received the B.Eng. degree in Microelectronics Science and Engineering from Shanghai Jiaotong University with highest honor, in 2020. I grew up in a small town in southwest China, where I received all my education till college.

I was recognized as the ML and Systems Rising Star in 2025, received MLSys'25 Outstanding Paper Award (Honorable Mention) and more honors.

Recent Updates:

  • Our APOLLO received the Outstanding Paper Award (Honorable Mention) at MLSys'25.
  • I will join Meta as Research Scientist Intern this summer to study efficient large reasoning models.
  • Research Interests

    My research interests lie in Efficient AI computing, focusing on Efficient ML Hardware/Systems and Efficient AI Algorithms with Hardware/Systems Awareness. I firmly believe that the co-design of hardware and algorithms is key to unlocking the ultimate efficiency in AI computing, shaping my expertise across both domains.

    • Hardware-Software Co-Design for Emerging AI Hardware and Computing Systems:
    • Efficient Training and Inference for Large Foundation Models:
      • Memory-efficient LLM training (APOLLO) with SGD-like memory efficiency but AdamW-level performance [MLSys'25] GitHub stars (🏆 Outstanding Paper Honorable Mention), Efficient On-Chip Training [NeurIPS'22]
      • Efficient Pre-LN Transformers [NeurIPS'23 Spotlight], Memory-efficient Neural Network with in-situ weights generation [ICCV'21]

    Education

    The University of Texas at Austin

    Ph.D. in Electrical and Computer Engineering (2020 - 2025)

    First year (2020-2021) conducted part-time in China due to COVID-19

    ML and System Rising star (2025), Graduate School Continuing Fellowship Nomination (1 of 2 in the ECE department), Texas ECE Graduate Achievement Award

    Advisor: Prof. David Z. Pan(Fellow of ACM, IEEE, SPIE)

    UT logo
    Shanghai Jiao Tong University

    B.Eng. in Microelectronics Science and Engineering (2016 - 2020)

    Graduated with Highest Honors

    Overall GPA: 3.81/4.00, Ranking: 2/57

    SJTU logo

    Work Experience

    Meta AI, CA, USA
    Research Scientist Intern, Efficient Large-scale Training
    Advisor: Dr. Jinwon Lee
    Meta logo
    Lightelligence Inc., MA, USA
    Software Research Intern, Low-bit Noise-aware Training for Photonic AI Chips
    Advisor: Dr. Weifeng Zhang
    LT logo
    Google Brain (now Google Deepmind), CA, USA
    Student Researcher, Google Brain, RL-based Chip Placement
    Advisor: Dr. Joe Jiang
    Google logo

    Selected Publications
    Full publication list at Google Scholar

    I published papers across top conferences in design automation, computer architecture, and machine learning, e.g., MLSys, HPCA, Neurips, ICCV, DAC, ICCAD, TCAD. (* denotes equal contribution.)

    Conferences

    APOLLO: SGD-like Memory, AdamW-level Performance
    Hanqing Zhu*, Zhenyu Zhang*, Wenyan Cong, Xi Liu, Sem Park, Vikas Chandra, Bo Long, David Z Pan, Zhangyang Wang, Jinwon Lee
    MLSys 2025 🏆 Outstanding Paper Honorable Mention Award GitHub stars  
    PACE: Pacing Operator Learning to Accurate Optical Field Simulation for Complicated Photonic Devices
    Hanqing Zhu, Wenyan Cong, Guojin Chen, Shupeng Ning, Ray T Chen, Jiaqi Gu, David Z Pan
    NeurIPS 2024  
    Lightening-transformer: A dynamically-operated optically-interconnected photonic transformer accelerator
    Hanqing Zhu, Jiaqi Gu, Hanrui Wang, Zixuan Jiang, Zhekai Zhang, Rongxing Tang, Chenghao Feng, Song Han, Ray T Chen, David Z Pan
    HPCA 2024  GitHub stars
    Pre-RMSNorm and Pre-CRMSNorm Transformers: Equivalent and Efficient Pre-LN Transformers
    Zixuan Jiang, Jiaqi Gu, Hanqing Zhu, David Pan
    NeurIPS 2023, Spotlight 
    DOTA: A Dynamically-Operated Photonic Tensor Core for Energy-Efficient Transformer Accelerator
    Hanqing Zhu, Jiaqi Gu, Hanrui Wang, Rongxin Tang, Zhekai Zhang, Chenghao Feng, Song Han, Ray T. Chen, David Z. Pan
    MLSys 2023, Workshop on Systems for Next-Gen AI Paradigms (SNAP) 
    NeurOLight: A Physics-Agnostic Neural Operator Enabling Parametric Photonic Device Simulation
    Jiaqi Gu, Zhengqi Gao, Chenghao Feng, Hanqing Zhu, Ray Chen, Duane Boning, David Pan
    Neurips 2022 
    Fuse and Mix: MACAM-Enabled Analog Activation for Energy-Efficient Neural Acceleration
    Hanqing Zhu, Keren Zhu, Jiaqi Gu, Harrison Jin, Ray T Chen, Jean Anne Incorvia, David Z Pan
    ICCAD 2022 
    L2ight: Enabling on-chip learning for optical neural networks via efficient in-situ subspace optimization
    Jiaqi Gu, Hanqing Zhu, Chenghao Feng, Zixuan Jiang, Ray Chen, David Pan
    Neurips 2021 
    ELight: Enabling Efficient Photonic In-Memory Neurocomputing with Life Enhancement
    Hanqing Zhu, Jiaqi Gu, Chenghao Feng, Mingjie Liu, Zixuan Jiang, Ray T Chen, David Z Pan
    ASP-DAC 2021 
    Towards Memory-Efficient Neural Networks via Multi-Level in situ Generation
    Jiaqi Gu, Hanqing Zhu, Chenghao Feng, Mingjie Liu, Zixuan Jiang, Ray T Chen, David Z Pan
    ICCV 2021 

    Journal

    Photonic-Electronic Integrated Circuits for High-Performance Computing and AI Accelerators
    Shupeng Ning*, Hanqing Zhu*, Chenghao Feng, Jiaqi Gu, Zhixing Jiang, Zhoufeng Ying, Jason Midkiff, Sourabh Jain, May H Hlaing, David Z Pan, Ray T Chen
    Journal of Lightwave Technology 2024 
    Domain Wall-Magnetic Tunnel Junction Analog Content Addressable Memory Using Current and Projected Data
    Harrison Jin, Hanqing Zhu, Keren Zhu, Thomas Leonard, Jaesuk Kwon, Mahshid Alamdar, Kwangseok Kim, Jungsik Park, Naoki Hase, David Z Pan, Jean Anne C Incorvia
    IEEE Transactions on Nanotechnology 2023 
    A Compact Butterfly-Style Silicon Photonic–Electronic Neural Chip for Hardware-Efficient Deep Learning
    Chenghao Feng, Jiaqi Gu, Hanqing Zhu, Zhoufeng Ying, Zheng Zhao, David Z Pan, Ray T Chen
    ACS Photonics 2022 
    ELight: Toward Efficient and Aging-Resilient Photonic In-Memory Neurocomputing
    Hanqing Zhu, Jiaqi Gu, Chenghao Feng, Mingjie Liu, Zixuan Jiang, Ray T Chen, David Z Pan
    TCAD 2022 

    Honors & Awards

    • Honorable Mention Outstanding Paper, MLSys, 2025
    • ML and Systems Rising Stars(38 out of 150+), ML Commons, 2025
    • Texas ECE Graduate Achievement Award , UT Austin 2024
    • UT Graduate School Continuing Fellowship Nomination (1 of 2 nominees in the entire ECE department), UT Austin 2024
    • 1st Place in IEEE/ACM MLCAD FPGA Macro-Placement Contest, MLCAD, 2023
    • MLSys Student Travel Award, MLsys 2023
    • Winner of Robert S. Hilbert Memorial Optical Design Competition, Synopsys, 2022
    • DAC Young Fellow, 2021
    • Shanghai Outstanding Graduate, 2020
    • Hongyi Scholarship, 2019
    • Outstanding Undergraduate Scholarship, 2019
    • Samsung Scholarship Scholarship, 2018
    • Zhiyuan College Honors Scholarship, 2018
    • 1st Prize, National Mathematical Contest in Modeling, hanghai Division, 2018
    • Academic Excellence Scholarship, 2017-2019

    Services

    • Journal Reviewers: 
      TNNLS, TCAD, Photonic Network Communications.
    • Conference Reviewers: 
      ICML, NeurIPS, ICLR, AAAI, DAC, ICCAD, FPGA, AICAS.