# Ashish Vaswani

> Indian computer scientist Ashish Vaswani co-authored the 2017 paper that introduced the transformer, co-founded Adept AI and Essential AI, and moved to NVIDIA in 2026. His work connects machine translation, large language models, and an argument for open AI research.

- **Role:** Computer Scientist at NVIDIA
- **Organizations:** NVIDIA, Essential AI, Adept AI Labs, Google Brain, USC Information Sciences Institute
- **Nationality:** Indian
- **Education:** B.E., Computer Science and Engineering, Birla Institute of Technology, Mesra, M.S., Computer Science, University of Southern California, Ph.D., Computer Science, University of Southern California
- **Known for:** First author of the eight-author 2017 paper “Attention Is All You Need.”, Co-created the transformer architecture, initially demonstrated on machine translation., Co-founded Adept AI Labs and Essential AI.

## Career timeline

- **2004** — Began graduate study in computer science at USC.
- **2012** — Visited Papua New Guinea for an NLP project documenting endangered languages.
- **2014** — Earned a Ph.D. in computer science at USC.
- **2016** — Joined Google Brain as a research scientist.
- **2017** — Co-authored “Attention Is All You Need,” introducing the transformer.
- **2022** — Co-founded Adept AI Labs and served as chief scientist.
- **2023** — Co-founded Essential AI with Niki Parmar and served as CEO.
- **2025** — Essential AI released the open Rnj-1 model.
- **2026** — Joined NVIDIA as a computer scientist; reporting linked the move to Nemotron open models.

## Achievements

- First author of the eight-author 2017 paper “Attention Is All You Need.”
- Co-created the transformer architecture, initially demonstrated on machine translation.
- Co-founded Adept AI Labs and Essential AI.
- Led Essential AI through a $56.5 million Series A announced in 2023.
- Authored Essential AI’s December 2025 introduction to the open Rnj-1 model.

## Latest updates

- **2026-06** — Joined NVIDIA as a computer scientist; reporting said he would work on Nemotron open models.
- **2026-03** — Appeared in an India Science Festival fireside chat about transformers and AI research.
- **2025-12** — Published Essential AI’s announcement of Rnj-1, an eight-billion-parameter open model.
- **2025-06** — Discussed open research and AI development in an Economic Times interview.

## Links

- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ashish-vaswani-99892181/
- Twitter/X: https://x.com/ashVaswani

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Profile page: https://yespress.io/ashish-vaswani
Published by YesPress — https://yespress.io
Last updated: 2026-09-29