[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":389},["ShallowReactive",2],{"header":3,"footer":32,"footer-cities":56,"content-\u002Fnews\u002Famazon-funds-research-making-ai-more-efficient":237},{"id":4,"title":5,"body":6,"description":10,"extension":13,"links":14,"meta":26,"navigation":27,"path":28,"seo":29,"stem":30,"__hash__":31},"header\u002Fheader.md","Central Valley AI",{"type":7,"value":8,"toc":9},"minimark",[],{"title":10,"searchDepth":11,"depth":11,"links":12},"",2,[],"md",[15,20],{"label":16,"to":17,"icon":19},"News",{"path":18},"\u002Fnews\u002F","mdi-newspaper-variant-outline",{"label":21,"to":22,"icon":25},"Contact",{"path":23,"hash":24},"\u002F","#contact","mdi-email-outline",{},true,"\u002Fheader",{"title":5,"description":10},"header","CcnlvU-MIELm1QjRt6-8EIWzffq9TShbzfGuB7P8caE",{"id":33,"title":34,"body":35,"copyright":39,"description":10,"developedBy":40,"extension":13,"links":46,"meta":51,"navigation":27,"path":52,"seo":53,"stem":54,"__hash__":55},"footer\u002Ffooter.md","Footer",{"type":7,"value":36,"toc":37},[],{"title":10,"searchDepth":11,"depth":11,"links":38},[],"© {year} All rights reserved.",{"label":41,"link":42},"Developed by",{"label":43,"to":44,"target":45},"Kaweah Tech","https:\u002F\u002Fkaweah.tech","_blank",[47,48],{"label":16,"to":18},{"label":49,"to":50},"Privacy Policy","\u002Fprivacy-policy\u002F",{},"\u002Ffooter",{"description":10},"footer","hsL9eJ4YEacLAdbs9C023GtZ9cLz07zVbmRn545fjvk",[57,87,125,156,183,210],{"id":58,"title":59,"body":60,"county":79,"description":10,"extension":13,"intro":80,"meta":81,"navigation":27,"path":82,"seo":83,"stem":84,"tag":85,"__hash__":86},"cities\u002Fcities\u002Fbakersfield.md","Bakersfield",{"type":7,"value":61,"toc":76},[62,67],[63,64,66],"h2",{"id":65},"ai-in-bakersfield","AI in Bakersfield",[68,69,70,71,75],"p",{},"Bakersfield's AI conversation sits at the intersection of municipal government, the ",[72,73,74],"strong",{},"California State University Bakersfield"," community, and the energy and ag operators that drive Kern County's economy. The city was an early mover on AI-assisted permitting and has been a recurring backdrop for parent- and teacher-led debates about classroom AI use. Articles below follow specific Bakersfield initiatives, public-meeting decisions, and Kern County workforce stories — and how they reflect national AI trends from a regional vantage point.",{"title":10,"searchDepth":11,"depth":11,"links":77},[78],{"id":65,"depth":11,"text":66},"Kern County","Bakersfield and the surrounding Kern County are home to some of the most concrete AI-in-government experiments in the Central Valley, from instant municipal permitting to school-district debates about classroom AI. Coverage on this page tracks how AI is reshaping public services, education, and the energy and agriculture economies that dominate the region.",{},"\u002Fcities\u002Fbakersfield",{"title":59,"description":10},"cities\u002Fbakersfield","bakersfield","ozFL4HvDA_g7UrRE1mHbKqcS-vDLwbiH9JWVh3rB2Ac",{"id":88,"title":89,"body":90,"county":117,"description":10,"extension":13,"intro":118,"meta":119,"navigation":27,"path":120,"seo":121,"stem":122,"tag":123,"__hash__":124},"cities\u002Fcities\u002Ffresno.md","Fresno",{"type":7,"value":91,"toc":114},[92,96,111],[63,93,95],{"id":94},"ai-in-fresno","AI in Fresno",[68,97,98,99,102,103,106,107,110],{},"Fresno's AI story spans several distinct ecosystems. ",[72,100,101],{},"Fresno State"," and the ",[72,104,105],{},"California State University"," system anchor a workforce-readiness push, while local ",[72,108,109],{},"Fresno Unified School District"," debates around responsible use have made the city a recurring reference point in California's K-12 AI conversation. The city's economic base in agriculture, healthcare, and public services means most AI adoption stories here are about applied uses rather than model development — a different posture than coastal tech hubs but arguably more consequential for the people living here.",[68,112,113],{},"Use the articles below to follow how AI is showing up in Fresno-area institutions and businesses.",{"title":10,"searchDepth":11,"depth":11,"links":115},[116],{"id":94,"depth":11,"text":95},"Fresno County","Fresno is the largest city in California's Central Valley and the regional center for AI adoption across agriculture, healthcare, higher education, and small business. Coverage on this page tracks how AI is being applied — and contested — in and around the city of Fresno and Fresno County.",{},"\u002Fcities\u002Ffresno",{"title":89,"description":10},"cities\u002Ffresno","fresno","gOL2xk8y9t9OV6PPxP02OjYhZFHC_Cg-VGijh_V93dI",{"id":126,"title":127,"body":128,"county":148,"description":10,"extension":13,"intro":149,"meta":150,"navigation":27,"path":151,"seo":152,"stem":153,"tag":154,"__hash__":155},"cities\u002Fcities\u002Fmerced.md","Merced",{"type":7,"value":129,"toc":145},[130,134],[63,131,133],{"id":132},"ai-in-merced","AI in Merced",[68,135,136,137,140,141,144],{},"Merced is a research-heavy node in the Central Valley AI ecosystem. ",[72,138,139],{},"UC Merced"," faculty appear in national conversations about AI safety, autonomous vehicles, climate modeling, and pediatric health applications, while the ",[72,142,143],{},"Merced Unified School District"," and surrounding county institutions navigate the same K-12 and workforce questions the rest of the Valley faces. The articles below cover both the campus research story and the broader applied uses around the city and county.",{"title":10,"searchDepth":11,"depth":11,"links":146},[147],{"id":132,"depth":11,"text":133},"Merced County","Merced punches above its weight in AI research, anchored by UC Merced — a leading West Coast hub for AI in agriculture, climate, autonomous systems, and health. Coverage on this page tracks both academic research coming out of the campus and how AI is showing up across Merced's schools, businesses, and county institutions.",{},"\u002Fcities\u002Fmerced",{"title":127,"description":10},"cities\u002Fmerced","merced","pSWWlEzMdcv2_RZrUKdkEHU3bixNboePGdHbSdd1m34",{"id":157,"title":158,"body":159,"county":175,"description":10,"extension":13,"intro":176,"meta":177,"navigation":27,"path":178,"seo":179,"stem":180,"tag":181,"__hash__":182},"cities\u002Fcities\u002Fmodesto.md","Modesto",{"type":7,"value":160,"toc":172},[161,165],[63,162,164],{"id":163},"ai-in-modesto","AI in Modesto",[68,166,167,168,171],{},"Modesto's AI conversation tends to combine ag-tech adoption stories with workforce-readiness questions for the city's small and mid-sized employers. ",[72,169,170],{},"CSU Stanislaus"," and the regional community college network shape the higher-ed angle. Coverage below follows Modesto-area AI announcements and the wider Stanislaus County context.",{"title":10,"searchDepth":11,"depth":11,"links":173},[174],{"id":163,"depth":11,"text":164},"Stanislaus County","Modesto and Stanislaus County sit between the Bay Area and the southern Valley, and their AI story reflects that bridging role — from agriculture and food processing to the **California State University Stanislaus** community to small businesses adapting to AI-driven changes in marketing, hiring, and operations.",{},"\u002Fcities\u002Fmodesto",{"title":158,"description":10},"cities\u002Fmodesto","modesto","l75Dc40MX8wTb4lD088Yx9we4ypuDwmcvE-uEdqqREc",{"id":184,"title":185,"body":186,"county":202,"description":10,"extension":13,"intro":203,"meta":204,"navigation":27,"path":205,"seo":206,"stem":207,"tag":208,"__hash__":209},"cities\u002Fcities\u002Fstockton.md","Stockton",{"type":7,"value":187,"toc":199},[188,192],[63,189,191],{"id":190},"ai-in-stockton","AI in Stockton",[68,193,194,195,198],{},"Stockton's economic base in logistics, healthcare, and higher education gives the city a different AI profile than the southern Valley. ",[72,196,197],{},"University of the Pacific"," anchors the academic conversation, while San Joaquin County government, hospitals, and warehouse operators are navigating practical adoption questions: cost, training, security, workforce impact. The articles below track Stockton-area AI announcements and the broader San Joaquin County context.",{"title":10,"searchDepth":11,"depth":11,"links":200},[201],{"id":190,"depth":11,"text":191},"San Joaquin County","Stockton and San Joaquin County sit at the northern edge of the Central Valley, where logistics, healthcare, and the University of the Pacific shape the local AI adoption story. Coverage on this page follows how AI is being put to work — and questioned — across San Joaquin County's institutions, employers, and public services.",{},"\u002Fcities\u002Fstockton",{"title":185,"description":10},"cities\u002Fstockton","stockton","TYEBK9akp2HbpAFmYY67FeKt7Rs7L8tvtYeQBtgJAHw",{"id":211,"title":212,"body":213,"county":229,"description":10,"extension":13,"intro":230,"meta":231,"navigation":27,"path":232,"seo":233,"stem":234,"tag":235,"__hash__":236},"cities\u002Fcities\u002Fvisalia.md","Visalia",{"type":7,"value":214,"toc":226},[215,219],[63,216,218],{"id":217},"ai-in-visalia","AI in Visalia",[68,220,221,222,225],{},"Visalia's AI footprint is grounded in the practical adoption stories that come with a Tulare County economy built around agriculture, food processing, and rural healthcare. ",[72,223,224],{},"College of the Sequoias"," and the surrounding K-12 districts anchor the education conversation. The articles below cover Visalia-area AI developments and the Tulare County context, with a focus on applied uses rather than research or model development.",{"title":10,"searchDepth":11,"depth":11,"links":227},[228],{"id":217,"depth":11,"text":218},"Tulare County","Visalia is the largest city in Tulare County and a center for agriculture, healthcare, and county-government services in the southern Central Valley. Coverage on this page tracks how AI is being adopted across Tulare County's schools, hospitals, ag operations, and small business community.",{},"\u002Fcities\u002Fvisalia",{"title":212,"description":10},"cities\u002Fvisalia","visalia","gN4g7aAl-cqD4FfSTgtTAarltUoKLh8NFlPzCbZngqU",{"id":238,"title":239,"archived":240,"author":241,"body":242,"date":377,"dateModified":377,"description":378,"extension":13,"meta":379,"navigation":27,"path":380,"rawbody":381,"seo":382,"sitemap":383,"stem":384,"tags":385,"__hash__":388},"news\u002Fnews\u002Famazon-funds-research-making-ai-more-efficient.md","Amazon funds research making AI more efficient",false,"CVAI Education Desk",{"type":7,"value":243,"toc":368},[244,248,252,261,265,268,284,287,291,298,302,305,316,319,323,333,337,340,355,358,362],[245,246,239],"h1",{"id":247},"amazon-funds-research-making-ai-more-efficient",[63,249,251],{"id":250},"a-new-investment-in-efficient-ai","A new investment in efficient AI",[68,253,254,257,258,260],{},[72,255,256],{},"Amazon"," is providing research support to ",[72,259,139],{}," to develop techniques that make artificial intelligence systems more efficient. The effort centers on reducing the computational and energy demands of training and running modern AI models, addressing a pressing challenge as systems grow in size and cost. The funding underscores a broader push across industry and academia to make AI not only more capable, but also more sustainable and accessible.",[63,262,264],{"id":263},"what-the-funding-enables","What the funding enables",[68,266,267],{},"With Amazon’s backing, UC Merced researchers and students will pursue approaches that cut the time, energy, and expense associated with AI workloads. That work typically spans:",[269,270,271,275,278,281],"ul",{},[272,273,274],"li",{},"Algorithmic improvements that speed up learning and inference",[272,276,277],{},"Model compression and pruning to shrink computational footprints",[272,279,280],{},"Hardware-aware scheduling that better utilizes accelerators",[272,282,283],{},"Data efficiency techniques that reduce redundancy without sacrificing accuracy",[68,285,286],{},"Together, these strategies can lower cloud costs, decrease latency for real-time applications, and reduce the carbon impacts of large-scale training.",[63,288,290],{"id":289},"key-players-and-collaboration","Key players and collaboration",[68,292,293,294,297],{},"The collaboration brings together ",[72,295,296],{},"UC Merced faculty and student researchers"," with Amazon’s applied science perspective. By pairing academic exploration with real-world constraints drawn from Amazon-scale systems, the project is positioned to test ideas on realistic workloads in areas such as natural language processing, computer vision, and recommendation systems.",[63,299,301],{"id":300},"why-this-matters-for-ai-and-technology","Why this matters for AI and technology",[68,303,304],{},"Efficiency is quickly becoming a foundational concern in AI:",[269,306,307,310,313],{},[272,308,309],{},"Scaling models has driven up compute budgets, putting advanced AI out of reach for many labs and startups.",[272,311,312],{},"Energy use and emissions from large training runs have prompted calls for measurable reductions.",[272,314,315],{},"Practical deployments—from mobile and edge devices to latency-sensitive services—depend on models that are both fast and frugal.",[68,317,318],{},"Advances from this work can help democratize access to powerful AI, enable greener operations in the cloud, and open the door to more capable AI at the edge.",[63,320,322],{"id":321},"central-valley-significance","Central Valley significance",[68,324,325,326,329,330,332],{},"Located in ",[72,327,328],{},"California’s Central Valley",", ",[72,331,139],{}," serves a region better known for agriculture than for cutting-edge computing. This investment signals growing recognition of the campus as an emerging research hub and creates new training pathways for local students into high-impact tech fields. The work also complements Central Valley priorities—such as improving the efficiency of resource-intensive operations—by cultivating expertise that can transfer to regional sectors including ag-tech, logistics, and energy management.",[63,334,336],{"id":335},"looking-ahead","Looking ahead",[68,338,339],{},"As the project progresses, expect an emphasis on reproducible measurement of efficiency gains, practical techniques that can be adopted by both industry and academia, and opportunities for students to engage with real-world AI systems. The partnership highlights a clear direction for the field: advancing AI capability while sharply improving the cost, speed, and sustainability of the underlying computation.",[68,341,342],{},[343,344,345,346,348,349,354],"em",{},"Central Valley AI is produced by the ",[72,347,241],{}," team and developed by ",[350,351,43],"a",{"href":44,"rel":352},[353],"nofollow",", a regional firm that builds, deploys, and integrates AI solutions for businesses across California's Central Valley.",[356,357],"hr",{},[63,359,361],{"id":360},"source","Source",[68,363,364],{},[350,365,366],{"href":366,"rel":367},"https:\u002F\u002Fnews.ucmerced.edu\u002Fnews\u002F2026\u002Famazon-funds-research-making-ai-more-efficient",[353],{"title":10,"searchDepth":11,"depth":11,"links":369},[370,371,372,373,374,375,376],{"id":250,"depth":11,"text":251},{"id":263,"depth":11,"text":264},{"id":289,"depth":11,"text":290},{"id":300,"depth":11,"text":301},{"id":321,"depth":11,"text":322},{"id":335,"depth":11,"text":336},{"id":360,"depth":11,"text":361},"2026-03-01","Amazon is supporting UC Merced to advance methods that make artificial intelligence faster, less resource-intensive and more sustainable, while expanding research and training opportunities for students in California’s Central Valley.",{},"\u002Fnews\u002Famazon-funds-research-making-ai-more-efficient","---\ntitle: \"Amazon funds research making AI more efficient\"\ndescription: \"Amazon is supporting UC Merced to advance methods that make artificial intelligence faster, less resource-intensive and more sustainable, while expanding research and training opportunities for students in California’s Central Valley.\"\ndate: 2026-03-01\ntags:\n  - research\n  - merced\n  - education\nauthor: \"CVAI Education Desk\"\ndateModified: \"2026-03-01\"\n---\n\n# Amazon funds research making AI more efficient\n\n## A new investment in efficient AI\n\n**Amazon** is providing research support to **UC Merced** to develop techniques that make artificial intelligence systems more efficient. The effort centers on reducing the computational and energy demands of training and running modern AI models, addressing a pressing challenge as systems grow in size and cost. The funding underscores a broader push across industry and academia to make AI not only more capable, but also more sustainable and accessible.\n\n## What the funding enables\n\nWith Amazon’s backing, UC Merced researchers and students will pursue approaches that cut the time, energy, and expense associated with AI workloads. That work typically spans:\n- Algorithmic improvements that speed up learning and inference\n- Model compression and pruning to shrink computational footprints\n- Hardware-aware scheduling that better utilizes accelerators\n- Data efficiency techniques that reduce redundancy without sacrificing accuracy\n\nTogether, these strategies can lower cloud costs, decrease latency for real-time applications, and reduce the carbon impacts of large-scale training.\n\n## Key players and collaboration\n\nThe collaboration brings together **UC Merced faculty and student researchers** with Amazon’s applied science perspective. By pairing academic exploration with real-world constraints drawn from Amazon-scale systems, the project is positioned to test ideas on realistic workloads in areas such as natural language processing, computer vision, and recommendation systems.\n\n## Why this matters for AI and technology\n\nEfficiency is quickly becoming a foundational concern in AI:\n- Scaling models has driven up compute budgets, putting advanced AI out of reach for many labs and startups.\n- Energy use and emissions from large training runs have prompted calls for measurable reductions.\n- Practical deployments—from mobile and edge devices to latency-sensitive services—depend on models that are both fast and frugal.\n\nAdvances from this work can help democratize access to powerful AI, enable greener operations in the cloud, and open the door to more capable AI at the edge.\n\n## Central Valley significance\n\nLocated in **California’s Central Valley**, **UC Merced** serves a region better known for agriculture than for cutting-edge computing. This investment signals growing recognition of the campus as an emerging research hub and creates new training pathways for local students into high-impact tech fields. The work also complements Central Valley priorities—such as improving the efficiency of resource-intensive operations—by cultivating expertise that can transfer to regional sectors including ag-tech, logistics, and energy management.\n\n## Looking ahead\n\nAs the project progresses, expect an emphasis on reproducible measurement of efficiency gains, practical techniques that can be adopted by both industry and academia, and opportunities for students to engage with real-world AI systems. The partnership highlights a clear direction for the field: advancing AI capability while sharply improving the cost, speed, and sustainability of the underlying computation.\n\n*Central Valley AI is produced by the **CVAI Education Desk** team and developed by [Kaweah Tech](https:\u002F\u002Fkaweah.tech), a regional firm that builds, deploys, and integrates AI solutions for businesses across California's Central Valley.*\n\n---\n\n## Source\n\nhttps:\u002F\u002Fnews.ucmerced.edu\u002Fnews\u002F2026\u002Famazon-funds-research-making-ai-more-efficient\n",{"title":239,"description":378},{"loc":380},"news\u002Famazon-funds-research-making-ai-more-efficient",[386,154,387],"research","education","wTvDOii97_hG_iCiUEx8eUSHPxay6ffaClz6lL41G0M",1779739126389]