ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
An AI-native strategy firmGlobal Advisors: a consulting leader in defining quantified strategy, decreasing uncertainty, improving decisions, achieving measureable results.
A Different Kind of Partner in an AI World
AI-native strategy
consulting
Experienced hires
We are hiring experienced top-tier strategy consultants
Quantified Strategy
Decreased uncertainty, improved decisions
Global Advisors is a leader in defining quantified strategies, decreasing uncertainty, improving decisions and achieving measureable results.
We specialise in providing highly-analytical data-driven recommendations in the face of significant uncertainty.
We utilise advanced predictive analytics to build robust strategies and enable our clients to make calculated decisions.
We support implementation of adaptive capability and capacity.
Our latest
Thoughts
No Results Found
The page you requested could not be found. Try refining your search, or use the navigation above to locate the post.
Strategy Tools
No Results Found
The page you requested could not be found. Try refining your search, or use the navigation above to locate the post.
Fast Facts
Higher asset returns required because of Rand volatility
Foreign investors require higher returns from South African assets in order to compensate for the ZAR/USD exchange rate volatility. The Satrix 40 would have had to give US investors more than double the returns than it did over the last ten years, in order to have...
Selected News
Quote: Kaoutar El Maghraoui
“We can’t keep scaling compute, so the industry must scale efficiency instead.” – Kaoutar El Maghraoui – IBM Principal Research Scientist
“We can’t keep scaling compute, so the industry must scale efficiency instead.” – Kaoutar El Maghraoui, IBM Principal Research Scientist
This quote underscores a pivotal shift in AI development: as raw computational power reaches physical and economic limits, the focus must pivot to efficiency through optimized hardware, software co-design, and novel architectures like analog in-memory computing.1,2
Backstory and Context of Kaoutar El Maghraoui
Dr. Kaoutar El Maghraoui is a Principal Research Scientist at IBM’s T.J. Watson Research Center in Yorktown Heights, NY, where she leads the AI testbed at the IBM Research AI Hardware Center—a global hub advancing next-generation accelerators and systems for AI workloads.1,2 Her work centers on the intersection of systems research and artificial intelligence, including distributed systems, high-performance computing (HPC), and AI hardware-software co-design. She drives open-source development and cloud experiences for IBM’s digital and analog AI accelerators, emphasizing operationalization of AI in hybrid cloud environments.1,2
El Maghraoui’s career trajectory reflects deep expertise in scalable systems. She earned her PhD in Computer Science from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) in 2007, following a Master’s in Computer Networks (2001) and Bachelor’s in General Engineering from Al Akhawayn University, Morocco. Early roles included lecturing at Al Akhawayn and research on IBM’s AIX operating system—covering performance tuning, multi-core scheduling, Flash SSD storage, and OS diagnostics using IBM Watson cognitive tech.2,6 In 2017, she co-led IBM’s Global Technology Outlook, shaping the company’s AI leadership vision across labs and units.1,2
The quote emerges from her lectures and research on efficient AI deployment, such as “Powering the Future of Efficient AI through Approximate and Analog In-Memory Computing,” which addresses performance bottlenecks in deep neural networks (DNNs), and “Platform for Next-Generation Analog AI Hardware Acceleration,” highlighting Analog In-Memory Computing (AIMC) to reduce energy losses in DNN inference and training.1 It aligns with her 2026 co-authored paper “STARC: Selective Token Access with Remapping and Clustering for Efficient LLM Decoding on PIM Systems” (ASPLOS 2026), targeting efficiency in large language models via processing-in-memory (PIM).2 With over 2,045 citations on Google Scholar, her contributions span AI hardware optimization and performance.8
Beyond research, El Maghraoui is an ACM Distinguished Member and Speaker, Senior IEEE Member, and adjunct professor at Columbia University. She holds awards like the 2021 Best of IBM, IBM Eminence and Excellence for advancing women in tech, 2021 IEEE TCSVC Women in Service Computing, and 2022 IBM Technical Corporate Award. Leadership roles include global vice-chair of Arab Women in Computing (ArabWIC), co-chair of IBM Research Watson Women Network (2019-2021), and program/general co-chair for Grace Hopper Celebration (2015-2016).1,2
Leading Theorists in AI Efficiency and Compute Scaling Limits
The quote resonates with foundational theories on compute scaling limits and efficiency paradigms, pioneered by key figures challenging Moore’s Law extensions in AI hardware.
| Theorist | Key Contributions | Relevance to Quote |
|---|---|---|
| Cliff Young & Contributors (Google) | Co-authored “Scaling Laws for Neural Language Models” (2020, arXiv) and MLPerf benchmarks; advanced hardware-aware neural architecture search (NAS) for DNN optimization on edge devices.1 | Demonstrates efficiency gains via NAS, directly echoing El Maghraoui’s lectures on hardware-specific DNN design to bypass compute scaling.1 |
| Bill Dally (NVIDIA) | Pioneer of processing-in-memory (PIM) and tensor cores; authored works on energy-efficient architectures amid “end of Dennard scaling” (power density limits post-2000s).2 | Warns against endless compute scaling; promotes PIM and sparsity, aligning with El Maghraoui’s STARC paper and analog accelerators.2 |
| Jeff Dean (Google) | Formulated Chinchilla scaling laws (2022), showing optimal compute allocation balances parameters and data; co-developed TensorFlow and TPUs for efficiency.2 | Highlights diminishing returns of pure compute scaling, urging efficiency in training/inference—core to IBM’s AI Hardware Center focus.1,2 |
| Hadi Esmaeilzadeh (Georgia Tech) | Introduced neurocube and analog in-memory computing (AIMC) concepts (e.g., “Navigating the Energy Wall” papers); quantified AI’s “memory wall” and von Neumann bottlenecks.1 | Foundational for El Maghraoui’s AIMC advocacy, proving analog methods boost DNN efficiency by 10-100x over digital compute scaling.1 |
| Song Han (MIT) | Developed pruning, quantization, and NAS (e.g., TinyML, HAWQ frameworks); showed 90%+ parameter reduction without accuracy loss.1 | Enables “scale efficiency” for real-world deployment, as in El Maghraoui’s “Optimizing Deep Learning for Real-World Deployment” lecture.1 |
These theorists collectively established that post-Moore’s Law (transistor density doubling every ~2 years, slowing since 2010s), AI progress demands efficiency multipliers: sparsity, analog compute, co-design, and beyond-von Neumann architectures. El Maghraoui’s work operationalizes these at IBM scale, from cloud-native DL platforms to PIM for LLMs.1,2,6
References
1. https://speakers.acm.org/speakers/el_maghraoui_19271
2. https://research.ibm.com/people/kaoutar-el-maghraoui
3. https://github.com/kaoutar55
4. https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1967-8749
6. https://s3.us.cloud-object-storage.appdomain.cloud/res-files/1843-Kaoutar_ElMaghraoui_CV_Dec2022.pdf
7. https://www.womentech.net/speaker/all/all/69100
8. https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=yDp6rbcAAAAJ&hl=en
Polls
No Results Found
The page you requested could not be found. Try refining your search, or use the navigation above to locate the post.
Services
Global Advisors is different
We help clients to measurably improve strategic decision-making and the results they achieve through defining clearly prioritised choices, reducing uncertainty, winning hearts and minds and partnering to deliver.
Our difference is embodied in our team. Our values define us.
Corporate portfolio strategy
Define optimal business portfolios aligned with investor expectations
BUSINESS UNIT STRATEGY
Define how to win against competitors
Reach full potential
Understand your business’ core, reach full potential and grow into optimal adjacencies
Deal advisory
M&A, due diligence, deal structuring, balance sheet optimisation
Global Advisors Digital Data Analytics
14 years of quantitative and data science experience
An enabler to delivering quantified strategy and accelerated implementation
Digital enablement, acceleration and data science
Leading-edge data science and digital skills
Experts in large data processing, analytics and data visualisation
Developers of digital proof-of-concepts
An accelerator for Global Advisors and our clients
Join Global Advisors
We hire and grow amazing people
Consultants join our firm based on a fit with our values, culture and vision. They believe in and are excited by our differentiated approach. They realise that working on our clients’ most important projects is a privilege. While the problems we solve are strategic to clients, consultants recognise that solutions primarily require hard work – rigorous and thorough analysis, partnering with client team members to overcome political and emotional obstacles, and a large investment in knowledge development and self-growth.
Get In Touch
16th Floor, The Forum, 2 Maude Street, Sandton, Johannesburg, South Africa
+27114616371