Kerem Camsari
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of California, Santa Barbara
Builder The claim is about what the hardware does, and the philosophy is left open
Kerem Camsari works on probabilistic computing at the University of California, Santa Barbara. With Supriyo Datta and co-authors he proposed the p-bit, a binary unit whose state fluctuates at random with a bias set by its inputs, first as a building block for invertible logic in Physical Review X in 2017 and then as a general framework in Applied Physics Reviews in 2019. A network of coupled p-bits samples the Boltzmann distribution of an Ising model, so it can do optimization and probabilistic inference with physical randomness in place of arithmetic.
His group has built these machines on field programmable gate arrays. A 2022 paper in Nature Electronics, first authored by Navid Anjum Aadit, showed that a sparse, graph-coloured p-bit network updates all its units in parallel, so its flip rate grows linearly with the number of p-bits. In June 2026 the group, with Siemens and Carnegie Mellon co-authors, networked 18 FPGAs into a single machine with one million p-bits and measured how often the boards must exchange boundary states to behave as one (arXiv:2606.25313). That work is set out in Kerem Camsari’s one million p-bit FPGA computer.
He is covered here under the Builder position for the hardware. The p-bit update rule he published is the rule that this project’s software p-bit emulator implements. No view on consciousness is attributed to him.
Known for. The p-bit, a binary unit that fluctuates at random under the control of its inputs, and probabilistic computers built from p-bits on FPGAs, including a networked machine with one million p-bits (arXiv 2606.25313, 2026)
Coverage on this site
Related researchers
- Navid Anjum AaditDepartment of Electrical Engineering, Stanford University (present address); previously University of California, Santa BarbaraFirst author of the sparse Ising machine on FPGAs (Nature Electronics, 2022) and of the programmable probabilistic computer with one million p-bits (arXiv 2606.25313, 2026)
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Supriyo DattaElmore Family School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Purdue UniversityQuantum transport theory of nanoscale devices, the Datta-Das spin transistor proposal (1990), and co-authorship of the p-bit framework for probabilistic computing (2017, 2019)
- Vikas AgnihotriIndependent Aerospace and Neuromorphic Systems ResearcherNeuromorphic Satellite Intelligence framework, radiation-induced energy overhead model for spiking neural hardware, constrained on-orbit STDP
- Matt AngleParadromicsFounder and CEO of Paradromics, developer of the Connexus Direct Data Interface high-data-rate brain-computer interface
- Isabella R. BeckettCoauthor of the MaleCNS preprint comparing male and female Drosophila brain connectomes
- Stuart BergFirst author of the MaleCNS preprint on the male Drosophila central nervous system
Kerem Camsari is listed with the other builders, who hold that the claim is about what the hardware does, and the philosophy is left open. The positions themselves are set out in the index of consciousness theories. Every researcher covered on this site is indexed in the directory of consciousness researchers.