# Sumcheck Builders Group Seminars

## Meeting Link
[Zoom Meeting](https://zoom.us/j/9132917498?pwd=cO2kdIxCEOkwrwwd0Qvd61Rc8UxtWu.1)
Meeting ID: 913 291 7498
Passcode: 598160

## Upcoming Talks

- [Giacomo Fenzi](https://gfenzi.io/) from EPFL to talk about his work on [STIR: Reed–Solomon Proximity Testing with Fewer Queries](https://eprint.iacr.org/2024/390.pdf) and [WHIR: Reed–Solomon Proximity Testing with Super-Fast Verification](https://eprint.iacr.org/2024/1586)
- __Two joint seminars with [Nexus](https://nexus.xyz/) Speaker Series__
- STIR session:
- Wendesnday, Oct 16, 11:00 AM PST / 2:00 PM EST / 8:00 PM CET
- Meeting room: https://meet.google.com/zdp-vjud-aji
- [Recording](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wYUnwLv-5Sg)
- WHIR session:
- Friday, Nov 8, 10:00 AM PST / 1:00 PM EST / 7:00 PM CET
- Meeting room: The usual [Zoom](https://zoom.us/j/9132917498?pwd=cO2kdIxCEOkwrwwd0Qvd61Rc8UxtWu.1) room

- Ron Rothblum from Succinct to talk about [Blaze: Fast SNARKs from Interleaved RAA Codes](https://eprint.iacr.org/2024/1609).
- Friday, Nov 1, 11:00 AM PST / 2:00 PM EST / 8:00 PM CET

## Past Talks

- Simon Lau from Polyhedra: a presentation on his recent work in accelerating SumChecks using GPUs. Simon is a researcher specializing in efficient hardware and computer architectures. He will share his latest findings and benchmark results, comparing the performance of both CUDA and Triton frameworks in this context
- Friday, October 18, 10:00 AM PST / 1:00 PM EST / 7:00 PM CET
- [Recording]()

- Vishruti (cryptography at %) will be talking about an optimization (dubbed "Beta Cascade") to the prover's sumcheck evaluation function over multilinear extensions of the form $V(g) = \sum_z \beta(g, z) * f(z)$ (where $f$ is nonlinear in each of the $z_i$'s), as is used in GKR over circuits with "structured" wiring patterns. In particular, Beta Cascade boasts an $O(2^n)$ per-sumcheck-round runtime ($n$ = number of "free" variables within the MLE), while requiring only $O(n)$ memory (vs. $O(2^n)$ for a "beta table" of evaluations) and an "update" step of $O(n)$ (vs. $O(2^n)$ for the "beta table" approach).
- Thurdays, Oct 3, 1 PM PT/ 4 PM ET / 10 PM CET
- [Recording](https://zoom.us/rec/share/66in8tv37LQbix6WJwFkvOjFJ5KoyYDwC8U85YAPAHSMBP-O_KVTKnO63-uyh0Sp.6_1Pk7vZN_5PsWJK), Passcode: 7s?MHjHv

- Tiancheng from Polyhdera team is going to talk about Pianist.
- Friday, Sept 27, 1 PM PT/ 4 PM ET / 10 PM CET
- Abstract: Blockchain technology has grown rapidly, but scalability remains a major challenge. Zero-knowledge proofs (ZKPs), especially zkRollups, offer solutions but often require massive resources. In this talk, we introduce a fully distributed approach to ZKP generation using multiple machines with minimal communication. Built on the Plonk system, our protocols can be used as a **recursive proof system**, significantly reducing prover time and resource demands, offering a more scalable solution for blockchain applications.
- [Recording](https://zoom.us/rec/share/0ZRmK_qx96xaukhbD8P9DcvbpAMEGwqzGKWgZZ7k7rlk7Bz6t4b77hQ-HHJ016nK.MqcHbX9MZJurY3tz), Passcode: 9KV#RkJa

- Lev from the PSE team is sharing his method for turbocharging Keccak circuits with GF2_128 field. He's talking about hitting speeds of 60K Keccak per second - pretty wild!
- Friday, Sept 13, 8 AM PT / 11 AM EST / 5 PM CET / 11 PM SGT
- [Recording](https://zoom.us/rec/share/ocmi9P9GAQNqQKAqzcSfUgoAurTp6-ky7NBC0mYIX4J9MFIm_vyfpRVpva8WNjP9.rbVYlehgHEoFA7wZ), Passcode: #RjuB+Y5
- [Slides](https://hackmd.io/@levs57/B1uG_Hx6A#/)

- Zhenfei from the Polyhedra team is gonna talk about some cool tricks they've used in their Expander prover, including stuff from GKR$^2$ to accelerate Poseidon hash functions.
- Friday, Sept 6, 8 AM PT / 11 AM EST / 5 PM CET / 11 PM SGT
- [Recording](https://zoom.us/rec/share/al5gScEwEhG3bdGUcQEZj2AaTtWhEb3MJx9oZ7J1JmpDQsZRxyWHlvIhihQCX8Hs.dR-SNfe0o0L0LpTd), Passcode: 4YYnVV1!