Keynote Speech

CHETTY, G. (Speaker)

Software Engineering

Activity: Talk or presentation › Invited talk

Description

Invited Keynote Speech titled " Beyond Words The Multimodal Paradigm Shift in Foundation Models" in the ICCEE 2026: International Conference on Computer and Electrical Engineering, June 24- 26, Brisbane, Australia (https://iccee.org/speaker.html)

Period	24 Jun 2026 → 26 Jun 2026
Event title	19th Internation Conference on Computer and Electric Engineering
Event type	Conference
Conference number	19
Location	Brisbane, Australia, QueenslandShow on map
Degree of Recognition	National

Documents & Links

Beyond Words – The Multimodal Paradigm Shift in Foundation Models We live in a multi-sensory reality, yet artificial intelligence has historically operated within rigid textual or visual silos. The emergence of Multimodal Foundation Models (MMFMs) marks the structural unification of machine perception, transitioning AI from passive, unimodal recognition to continuous, cross-modal reasoning. This talk addresses the architectural and economic landscape of modern multimodality. We begin by tracing the evolution of cross-modal alignment from foundational dual-encoders to state-of-the-art 2026 native architectures, including sparse Mixture-of-Experts (MoE) and ultra-long context vision-language models. Moving beyond theory, we present a transparent cost-benefit analysis separating closed-source APIs from self-hosted, quantized open-weight alternatives—demonstrating how localized infrastructure transforms enterprise scale economics. Finally, we explore the frontier of Vision-Language-Action (VLA) agents capable of autonomous digital and robotic orchestration. Crucially, this talk demonstrates how these compressed, high-capacity models can be democratized via edge-compute frameworks (PEFT and knowledge distillation) to function entirely offline in infrastructure-starved environments. By deploying geospatial and clinical foundation models at the edge, we unlock a powerful, scalable toolkit to address planetary crises and practically achieve the United Nations 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).