Alexander D. Wissner-Gross Keynote Speaker

Dr. Alexander D. Wissner-Gross is an award-winning computer scientist, entrepreneur, investor, and advisor. He is Founder and Managing Partner of Reified and has taught at Harvard and MIT. He has received 128 major distinctions, authored 24 publications, been granted 26 issued, pending, and provisional patents, and founded, advised, and invested in more than 40 technology companies.

Alexander’s work explores the intersection of artificial intelligence, advanced computing, and complex systems. He is widely known for pioneering the concept of “causal entropic forces”, a theory proposing that intelligent systems behave in ways that maximise their future freedom of action. First introduced in a landmark paper in Physical Review Letters, the idea sparked global discussion about the physical foundations of intelligence and new approaches to designing AI systems.

A thought leader in artificial intelligence and cyber-physical systems, he is a contributing author of the New York Times science bestseller This Idea Must Die and the Amazon #1 new release What to Think About Machines That Think. A popular TED speaker, his talks have been viewed more than 2 million times and translated into 27 languages. His work has been featured in more than 200 press outlets worldwide, including The Wall Street Journal, BusinessWeek, CNN, USA Today, and Wired.

Alexander studied at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, graduating with degrees in physics, electrical engineering, and mathematics before completing his PhD in physics at Harvard University. His doctoral research received the prestigious Hertz Foundation Doctoral Thesis Prize. As a keynote speaker, he translates complex scientific ideas into clear insights on the future of artificial intelligence, advanced computing, and technological innovation.