Syed Ghazi Sarwat

Dr. Ghazi Sarwat Syed has been a Research Staff Member at IBM Research in Zurich, Switzerland, since 2019 and holds the honorary title of Master Inventor. He earned a Bachelor of Engineering degree from PSG College of Technology and a Ph.D. in Metallurgical Engineering and Materials Science from the University of Oxford. His current research focuses on advancing processing-in-memory technologies for deep learning accelerators, encompassing both electronic and optical domains. This work combines innovations in device design, functional materials, algorithms, and software development. A Forbes 30 Under 30 honoree, Dr. Syed is the inventor of 28 international patents, and his contributions have been widely published in leading journals and conferences, including Nature Nanotechnology, Nature Communications, Science Advances, Advanced Materials. In addition to his research, Dr. Syed holds nanodegree certifications in software engineering from Udacity and Coursera, and has played a role in the development of IBM’s inference server infrastructure. Dr. Syed is a passionate advocate for science communication and STEM education and is always eager to engage in discussions and initiatives supporting these cause.

SELECTED PUBLICATIONS

• Ghazi Sarwat Syed, K. Brew, A. Vasilopoulos, V. P. Jonnalagadda, B. Kersting, T. Philip, V. Bragaglia, S. Ambrogio, J. Büchel, I. Giannopoulos, M. Le Gallo, C.-W. Cheng, M. BrightSky, V. Narayanan, N. Saulnier, A. Sebastian. "In-Memory Compute Chips with Carbon-based Projected Phase-Change Memory Devices."IEEE International Electron Devices Meeting (IEDM) (2023).
• Ghazi Sarwat Syed, Yingqiu Zhou, Jamie Warner, and Harish Bhaskaran. "Atomically thin optomemristive feedback neurons." Nature Nanotechnology (2023): 1-8
• Ghazi Sarwat Syed, Benedikt Kersting, Timoleon Moraitis, Vara Prasad Jonnalagadda, and Abu Sebastian. "Phase-change memtransistive synapses for mixed-plasticity neural computations." Nature Nanotechnology 17, no. 5 (2022): 507-513.
• Ghazi Sarwat,Syed, Brückerhoff-Plückelmann, F., Carrillo, S.G.C., Gemo, E., Feldmann, J., Bhaskaran, H., Wright, C.D., Pernice, W.H. and Sebastian, A., 2022. An integrated photonics engine for unsupervised correlation detection. Science Advances, 8(22), p.eabn3243
• Ghazi Sarwat Syed, Manuel Le Gallo, Robert L. Bruce, Kevin Brew, Benedikt Kersting, Vara Prasad Jonnalagadda, Injo Ok, Nicole Saulnier, Matthew BrightSky, and Abu Sebastian. "Mechanism and Impact of Bipolar Current Voltage Asymmetry in Computational Phase‐Change Memory." Advanced Materials 35, no. 37 (2023): 2201238.
• Ghazi Sarwat Syed, Timoleon Moraitis, C. David Wright, and Harish Bhaskaran. "Chalcogenide optomemristors for multi-factor neuromorphic computation." Nature communications 13, no. 1 (2022): 2247.
• Ghazi Sarwat Syed, Timothy M. Philip, Ching‐Tzu Chen, Benedikt Kersting, Robert L. Bruce, Cheng‐Wei Cheng, Ning Li, Nicole Saulnier, Matthew BrightSky, and Abu Sebastian. "Projected Mushroom Type Phase‐Change Memory." Advanced Functional Materials 31, no. 49 (2021): 210654
• Ghazi Sarwat Syed, Pascal Gehring, Gerardo Rodriguez Hernandez, Jamie H. Warner, G. Andrew D. Briggs, Jan A. Mol, and Harish Bhaskaran. "Scaling limits of graphene nanoelectrodes." Nano Letters 17, no. 6 (2017): 3688-3693.
• Full list: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2054-4887

HOT OF THE PRESS

• Ghazi Sarwat Syed, Benedikt Kersting, Urs Egger and Abu Sebastian . "Phase Change Computational Sensor." npj Unconventional Computing (2025)
• Le Gallo, Manuel, Oscar Hrynkevych, Benedikt Kersting, Geethan Karunaratne, Athanasios Vasilopoulos, Riduan Khaddam-Aljameh, Ghazi Sarwat Syed, and Abu Sebastian. "Demonstration of 4-quadrant analog in-memory matrix multiplication in a single modulation." npj Unconventional Computing 1, no. 1 (2024): 11.
• Teng Zhang, Stanislaw Wozniak, Ghazi Sarwat Syed, Daniele Lelmini, Abu Sebastian, Yuchao Yang, "Emerging materials and computing paradigms for temporal signal analysis", Advanced Materials (2025)

IN PRESS

• Ghazi Sarwat Syed, Manuel Le Gallo, Abu Sebastian."Phase Change Memory for In-Memory Computing", Chemical Reviews (2025)
• Frank Brückerhoff-Plückelmann, Anna P. Ovvyan, Akhil Varri, Hendrik Borras, Bernhard Klein, Lennart Meyer, C. David Wright, Harish Bhaskaran, Ghazi Sarwat Syed, Abu Sebastian, Holger Fröning , Wolfram Pernice. " Probabilistic Photonic Computing for AI", Nature Computational Science (2025)
• Prili, Simone, Valeria Bragaglia, Vara Prasad Jonnalagadda, Jesse Luchtenveld, Fabrizio Arciprete, Bart J. Kooi, Abu Sebastian, and Ghazi Sarwat Syed. "Understanding the Growth and Properties of Sputter-Deposited Phase-Change Superlattice Films." Adv. Mat & Interface (2025)

BOOK/REVIEW/COMMENTARY

• Abu Sebastian, Ghazi Sarwat Syed, "Phase Change Materials in Roadmap to Neuromorphic Computing with Emerging Technologies.", APL Materials 12, no. 10 (2024)
• Ghazi Sarwat Syed, M. Le Gallo, A. Sebastian. "Book Chapter: Non von Neumann Computing Concepts", Materials Today, ISBN: 0128234911 (2024)
• Ghazi Sarwat Syed, Harish Bhaskaran. "Memristors get the hues". Nature Nanotechnology, 16 (2021)
• Ghazi Sarwat Syed. "Materials science and engineering of phase change random access memory." Materials science and technology 33, no. 16 (2017)

OPEN ACCESS SOFTWARE

• fmperf: A Python-based benchmarking tool for large language models (LLM) serving frameworks

EUROPEAN UNION FUNDED PROJECTS

• Since 2022, Co-Principal Investigator of EU Project HYBRAIN 101046878
• Since 2022, Innovation Manager of EU Project HYBRAIN 101046878 (recognized with an EU Innovation Radar Award)
• Since 2022, Contributor to WP1 of EU Project NeuroSOC 101070634
• 2019-2022, IBM’s Co-ordinator of EU Project FunComp 780848

INVITED TALKS/LECTURES

• Tutorial on Phase Change In-Memory Computing at Materials Research Society Fall Meeting, 2024
• Disc-type Phase-Change Memory Devices for Analog In-Memory Computing at European Phase Change and Ovonics Symposium, 2024
• Analog In-Memory Computing with Phase Change Computational Memor, ePCM Workshop by ST Microelectronics, 2024
• Neural Network Inference using Analog In-memory Computing at International Workshop on the Physics of Semiconductor Devices, 2023
• In-Memory Compute Chips with Carbon-based Projected Phase-Change Memory Devices at IEEE International Electron Devices Meeting, 2023
• Tutorial on A Gentle Introduction to In-Memory Computing at Mauterndorf Winterschool, 2023
• Chalcogenide Computational Memory at European Phase Change and Ovonics Symposium, 2022
• Concepts of In-memory Computing, ETH University, 2022
• Neuromorphic Computing and Neural Networks at Club House , 2022
• Phase Change Computational Memory at The Materials Research Society of India, 2022
• Biomimetic Phase Change Memtransistive Synapse at European Phase Change and Ovonics Symposium, 2022
• Brain-Inspired Photonics Computing using Non-Volatile Memories at The European Conference on Optical Communication, 2021
• In-memory Computing using Phase Change Materials at Photonics North, 2021
• Nanoelectronics with Low-dimensional Thin Films at IBM Research, 2019
• Light-Matter Interaction in Phase Change Materials at European Phase Change and Ovonics Symposium, 2018
• Two Dimensional Materials for Nanoelectronics at Public Engagement Lectures, 2018
• Phase Change Materials for Optical Applications at Symposium on Amorphous Chalcogenides, 2018
• Truly Flexible Technologies at Wearable and Flexible Technology Symposium, WAFT, 2018 and 2017
• Graphene Nanogaps: It's Performance Limits at The International Union of Materials Research Societies, IUMRS, 2018
• Nanogap Electrodes for Nanoelectronics' at The Micro and Nano Engineering, MNE, 2017
• Phase Change Memory using graphene Nanogaps at The Micromechanics and Microsystems Europe Workshop, 2017

UPCOMING

• Materials Research Society, 2025 Fall Meeting, Boston. Presentations in the Phase-change Materials Symposium and in the Advances in Neuromorphic Computing Symposium

SERVICES

• Guest Editor for the Special Issue ‘Ultralow Power Operating Non-Volatile Memory Devices’, Advanced Functional Materials, 2024-2025
• Reviewer for the Körber European Science Prize, 2025
• Organizer of the ‘Optical and Electronic Phase Change Materials: Science and Application Symposium’, GOMD, Vancouver, 2024-2025
• Organizer of the ‘Phase Change Materials Symposium’, Material Research Society, San Francisco, 2023
• Committee Member of IBM’s Council of Innovation Leadership, 2022 onwards
• IBM Liaison for Semiconductor Research Corporation’s Industry-Academia Programs in the United States, 2022 onwards

IN THE NEWS

• The chips of tomorrow may well take inspiration from the architecture of our brains
• Artificial neurons mimic complex brain abilities for next-generation AI computing
• 3D Integration Supports CIM Versatility And Accuracy
• Phase Change Materials in MRS Spring 2023
• Forbes 30 Under 30
• IBM scientists give artificial neural networks a new look for neuromorphic computing
• An “Optomemristor” for Neural-Net Computing
• An Integrated Photonics Engine for Unsupervised Correlation Detection
• Lighting up artificial neural networks
• Photonics offers a solution to latency issues for AI
• What ultimately limits the scaling of graphene nanogap electrodes
• Studying strain effects in 2D materials using Kelvin Probe Microcopy
• Writing a scientific literature review
• Techian To Oxonian

CREATING NEW COMPUTE PARADIGMS

• High-accuracy physical solvers (solving NP-Hard problems with quantum-inspired approaches)
• Analog computational sensors (IoT with low-latency, privacy-preserving processing)
• Ultra-fast transceivers with compute (performing parallelized search and logic on data streams)
• Next-gen in-memory compute hardware (enhanced functionality using rigorous bio-mimicry)
• Hardware assisted big data clustering (outperforming Lloyd's in high dimensions)

MemVerse GROUP

Current Students :

• Loris Coccia | 2025 Intern on Projected Disc Cell Memories
• Jesse Luchtenveld | 2023 PhD Student on Ultra thin Computational Devices

Alumni :

• Frank Brückerhoff-Plückelmann | 2024 Intern on Electro-Photonic In Memory Processors | Awarded Best 2024 PhD Project Prize in HCR Dept in IBM Research Zurich | Now a Group Leader at University of Heidelberg
• Davide Lombardo | 2024 Master Thesis on Cryogenic In-Memory Computing | Top 5 % EPFL Dissertations & Awarded Best 2024 Masters Project Prize in HCR Dept in IBM Research Zurich | Now a PhD Student at Lund University
• Siddharth Gautam | 2024 Master Thesis on Disc Type Phase Change Memory Devices | Top 5 % EPFL Dissertations | Now a PhD Student at EPFL, Switzerland
• Andrea Casini | 2024 Master Thesis on Device Modelling | Top 5 % Polytechnic of Turin Dissertations | Exploring Industrial Jobs (please connect if you are looking for a talent)
• Simone Prili | 2023 Intern on Suplerlattice Chalcogenide Films | Best Poster Prize at EPCOS 2024 | Now a PhD Student at University of Rome Tor Vergata
• Luis Mickeler | 2023 Intern on Photonic Computing | Now a PhD Student at ETH Zurich, Switzerland
• Stephan Menzel | 2022 Sabbatical on Device Modelling | Scientist at Forschungszentrum Juelich