Labs

Seven disciplines. One practice of careful work.

A lab is a question patient enough to be pursued for years, and the fellows willing to pursue it. Each lab maintains a list of open problems — where we think a well-posed attempt could move the frontier.

Lab 01

AI & Machine Learning

What if the data built the network?

A new paradigm for neural architecture — Reverse Synthetic Neural Networks that construct models directly from data patterns, without gradient descent, backpropagation, or GPU training. From zero-training synthesis to interpretable, efficient intelligence.

Open problems
  • 01Zero-training synthesis of transformer architectures from observed data
  • 02Reverse Synthetic Neural Networks for resource-constrained and edge deployment
  • 03Closed-form alternatives to iterative optimization in deep learning
Lab 02

Stochastic Computing

Computing with probability as the primitive.

Hardware and algorithms in which randomness is not noise to suppress but the substrate itself — for ultra-low-power inference and neuromorphic systems.

Open problems
  • 01Noise-native inference on edge hardware
  • 02Stochastic primitives for probabilistic programming
  • 03Energy-proportional computing for always-on sensing
Lab 03

Market Computation

Markets as computational substrates.

Market microstructure, microdynamics, and the theory of financial markets as programmable computational systems — for asset management, risk inference, and the science of economic computation.

Open problems
  • 01Universal computation via orderbook microstructure dynamics
  • 02Adversarial amplification and the benefit of selfish agents
  • 03Non-custodial portfolio construction through market-native algorithms
Lab 04

Blockchain Technology

Proof of origin that survives transformation.

Cryptographic provenance for intellectual property of any kind. On-chain timestamping today only proves that one exact file existed at a moment in time — it breaks the instant a work is paraphrased, reformatted, translated, or remixed by a model, and it forces you to reveal the work in order to register it. We work on the unsolved version: provenance that is invariant to semantic-preserving transformation, and that can be proven in zero knowledge — letting a creator register a work and later establish priority or trace derivation without ever revealing the work itself. It is the research substrate beneath ठप्पा (Ṭhappā).

Open problems
  • 01Transformation-invariant fingerprints — provenance that survives paraphrase, re-encoding, translation, and AI remixing
  • 02Zero-knowledge proofs of priority and derivation that never disclose the protected work
  • 03On-chain verifiable similarity — proving a later work is, or is not, derived from a registered original
Lab 05

Astronomy

A uniform standard of evidence for other worlds.

Statistical inference over sparse, noisy, high-dimensional observations of the universe — and, at the lab's leading edge, a single standard of evidence for exoplanet atmospheres. We build machine-accelerated Bayesian retrieval that turns the public JWST archive into reproducible, preregistered verdicts on contested biosignature claims. It is the research substrate beneath व्योम (Vyom).

Open problems
  • 01Amortized neural posterior estimation for atmospheric retrieval at archive scale
  • 02Calibrated abiotic-null tests for contested biosignature claims (DMS, CH₄/CO₂ disequilibrium)
  • 03Stellar-contamination and reduction-systematics modeling for M-dwarf transmission spectra
Lab 06

Computational Biology

From sequence to therapy.

Modeling the machinery of living systems at scale — protein dynamics, regulatory networks, and the interpretable biology of disease.

Open problems
  • 01Generalizable models of cellular perturbation response
  • 02Interpretable structure prediction for intrinsically disordered proteins
  • 03Low-data regimes in rare-disease therapeutics
Lab 07

Quantum Computation

Useful computation before fault tolerance.

Algorithms and error-mitigation techniques for the NISQ era, and the theoretical frontier of what quantum advantage actually means outside cryptography.

Open problems
  • 01Practical benchmarks for near-term quantum advantage
  • 02Hybrid classical-quantum optimization at scale
  • 03Error mitigation without full error correction
An eighth lab

Bring a question we don't yet have a home for.

The shape of the commons is not fixed. A fellow with a sharply posed discipline-defining question can propose a new lab. Tell us what it is.

Propose a lab