Naveen Rao
Co-founder and CEO of Unconventional AI, with a background in electrical engineering and a PhD in neuroscience.
First Mentioned
9/27/2026, 5:22:15 AM
Last Updated
9/27/2026, 5:25:01 AM
Research Retrieved
9/27/2026, 5:25:01 AM
Summary
Naveen Rao is a prominent figure in the technology and film industries. In the realm of artificial intelligence, he is the co-founder and CEO of Unconventional AI, a startup focused on AI chips. Rao has a history of entrepreneurial success, having previously founded Nirvana Systems, which he later sold to Intel. He also worked with Ali Ghodsi at Databricks to develop infrastructure for scaling Large Language Models. Rao is a proponent of "4D Computing" and "Compute in memory," inspired by neurobiology and mammalian brains, as a more efficient alternative to traditional CPU and GPU architectures, which he believes are hindered by the von Neumann architecture and the end of Moore's Law scaling. Unconventional AI has developed an open-source model called Uno, which demonstrates extreme efficiency through concepts like sparsity and state space trajectory analysis. Rao anticipates that this technology could unlock a trillion-dollar economic opportunity and lead to widespread deployment of robotics. In the film industry, Naveen Rao produced the 2024 Indian Kannada-language romantic drama film "For Regn" (For Registration), which was also written and directed by Naveen Dwarakanath. The film, starring Pruthvi Ambaar and Milana Nagaraj, received mixed reviews and underperformed at the box office.
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View on WikipediaFor Regn
For Regn (For Registration) is a 2024 Indian Kannada-language romantic drama film written and directed by Naveen Dwarakanath, in his debut and produced by Naveen Rao. The film features Pruthvi Ambaar and Milana Nagaraj in the lead roles. The film's score is by Nakul Abhyankar and soundtrack is composed by R. K. Harish. To enhance the visual experience, the film's team used Mocobot camera to shoot few scenes and an underwater shot song choreographed by Imran Sardhariya. The film was released on 23 February 2024 to mixed reviews and underperformed at the box-office.
Web Search Results
- The Evolution of AI Models with Naveen Rao of MosaicML
Naveen Rao is the CEO and Co-Founder of the machine learning (ML) training platform, MosaicML, and the former CEO and Co-Founder of Nervana Systems.
- Naveen Rao, MD | RF
Dr. Naveen Rao is Senior Vice President of the Health Initiative at The Rockefeller Foundation, where he leads efforts to build climate-resilient, equitable health systems and reimagine the future of global health. He previously directed the Foundation’s Covid-19 response, global vaccination strategies, and pathogen surveillance initiatives. Prior to joining the Foundation, Dr. Rao spent 25 years at Merck & Co., where he led Merck for Mothers, a $500 million initiative to reduce maternal mortality. Earlier in his career, he practiced Internal Medicine in New York City and served as Associate Director of Medicine at Beekman-Downtown Hospital. He is Board Certified in Internal Medicine and a Fellow of the American College of Physicians. ## Authored Content [...] Skip to content The Rockefeller Foundation Health/ # Naveen Rao, MD Senior Vice PresidentHealth, The Rockefeller Foundation [...] Feb 23 2026 Perspective Who Owns the Response To Heat? In Bangladesh, Everyone Does After losing 26.5 billion labor hours to heat in 2023, Bangladesh is scaling HeatShield — a first-of-its-kind system helping farmers stay safe in a rapidly warming world. Naveen Rao, MD, FACP Sep 24 2025 Perspective When Communities Lead, Heat–Health Solutions Save Lives The Rockefeller Foundation is advancing climate and health resilience by supporting locally driven solutions, strengthening community systems, and investing in global cooperation through its $50 million Build the Shared Future initiative. Naveen Rao, MD, FACP
- Naveen Rao Biography | Booking Info for Speaking ...
Naveen Rao is the Vice President of Generative AI at Databricks. He was previously the vice president and general manager of the Artificial Intelligence
- The 80-Year Bet: Why Naveen Rao Is Rebuilding the Computer from Scratch | Andreessen Horowitz
Infra # The 80-Year Bet: Why Naveen Rao Is Rebuilding the Computer from Scratch Naveen Rao and Matt Bornstein Posted December 8, 2025 Share Email X LinkedIn Facebook Hacker News WhatsApp Flipboard Reddit Share Email X LinkedIn Facebook Hacker News WhatsApp Flipboard Reddit Naveen Rao is cofounder and CEO of Unconventional AI, an AI chip startup building analog computing systems designed specifically for intelligence. Previously, Naveen led AI at Databricks and founded two successful companies: Mosaic (cloud computing) and Nervana (AI accelerators, acquired by Intel). [...] In this episode, a16z’s Matt Bornstein sits down with Naveen at NeurIPS to discuss why 80 years of digital computing may be the wrong substrate for AI, how the brain runs on 20 watts while data centers consume 4% of the US energy grid, the physics of causality and what it might mean for AGI, and why now is the moment to take this unconventional bet. About the Contributors #### Naveen Rao X Linkedin is the cofounder and CEO of Unconventional AI and former vice president of AI at Databricks X Linkedin
- Naveen Rao - Unconventional AI
Skip to content Unconventional AI Logo Unconventional AI Logo Unconventional AI Logo grant careers # Naveen Rao Naveen Rao is the CEO and cofounder of Unconventional AI, with a unique background bridging neuroscience and computing. He earned his PhD in Neuroscience from Brown University and successfully founded and sold two AI startups: Nervana Systems (acquired by Intel) and MosaicML (acquired by Databricks). Unconventional Fact: Naveen is a race car driver. ### Neural co-evolution, the inevitability of hardware and software co-evolution for AI For 60 years, hardware and software have been siloed. Discover how Unconventional AI is breaking these barriers through "neural co-evolution"—co-designing neural... Read more. ### Introducing Unconventional AI
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Date Of Birth
5/21/1975
Location Data
Naveen Glass House, Sainikpuri-ECIL Main Road, Bhavani Nagar, Ward 2 Dr A S Rao Nagar, Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation East Zone, Hyderabad, Kapra mandal, Medchal–Malkajgiri, Telangana, 500062, India
Coordinates: 17.4766086, 78.5675139
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