PeopleofSuperintelligence

Builder

Manjunath Kudlur

Manjunath Kudlur is an AI systems builder whose work spans machine-learning infrastructure and speech recognition. He earned a computer science and engineering PhD at the University of Michigan in 2008 for Streamroller, a compilation and synthesis framework for streaming applications. At Google Brain, he worked on TensorFlow, whose team released it as open source in 2015; a coauthored systems paper appeared at OSDI in 2016, and he coauthored a 2018 paper on dynamic control flow before leading Cerebras's compiler software project in 2019. In March 2023, he was CTO of Useful Sensors when it announced a global partnership with OKdo for low-cost modules for presence detection, hand gestures and voice interfaces. He coauthored Moonshine speech-recognition models in 2024, specialized models for underrepresented languages in 2025, and Moonshine v2 in 2026; as of October 2026, he is co-founder and CTO of Moonshine AI, whose Moonshine Voice toolkit uses speech-to-text models he and the team created.

Now at
Moonshine AI
Badges
Links
Google Scholar

Timeline

  1. 2008

    A University of Michigan PhD

    He earns a PhD in computer science and engineering at the University of Michigan in 2008. His thesis is Streamroller: A Unified Compilation and Synthesis Framework for Streaming Applications.

  2. 2015–2016

    TensorFlow at Google Brain

    Google Brain releases TensorFlow as open source in November 2015. He coauthors the system paper that appears at OSDI in 2016 and works on TensorFlow within Google Brain.

  3. 2018

    Dynamic control flow in ML

    In 2018, he coauthors a EuroSys paper presenting a programming model for distributed machine learning with dynamic control flow.

  4. 2019

    Cerebras compiler lead

    In 2019, he is the technical lead for Cerebras Systems’ compiler software project, which maps neural networks to a wafer-scale accelerator. Before Cerebras, he works on TensorFlow at Google Brain and on compilers and programming-language research at NVIDIA.

  5. March 2023

    CTO at Useful Sensors

    In March 2023, he is CTO of Useful Sensors as it announces a global manufacturing and distribution partnership with OKdo. Its small, low-cost machine-learning modules support presence detection, hand gesture recognition and voice interfaces.

  6. 2024

    Moonshine speech recognition

    In 2024, he coauthors Moonshine, a family of speech-recognition models for live transcription and voice commands. Moonshine Tiny uses five times less compute than Whisper tiny-en for a 10-second transcription, with no increase in word error rates.

  7. 2025

    Specialized Moonshine models

    In 2025, he coauthors Flavors of Moonshine, a suite of tiny speech-recognition models specialized for underrepresented languages.

  8. As of October 2026

    Moonshine AI CTO

    In 2026, he coauthors Moonshine v2, an ergodic streaming-encoder ASR model that uses sliding-window self-attention for bounded, low-latency inference. As of October 2026, he is co-founder and CTO of Moonshine AI. Moonshine Voice uses speech-to-text models he and the team created.

Career

  1. NowMoonshine AICo-founder and CTO
  2. 2015–2016Google Brain
  3. Cerebras SystemsCompiler lead
  4. Useful SensorsCTO

Education

  1. 2008University of MichiganPhD

From the biography.

  1. The median h-index is 48 at universities and 14 at frontier AI labsIncludes Manjunath Kudlur. The median h-index is 48 at universities and 14 at frontier AI labs. We compare publishing careers, recent citations, dual appointments and job moves across 2,420 university researchers and 308 frontier-lab researchers.
  2. Google had the most people shaping AI every year from 2014 to 2025Includes Google. Our estimates of which organizations employed the most people shaping AI each year from 1955 to 2025, tracing the shift from university labs to companies.
  3. Google has the highest combined h-index among AI organizationsIncludes Google. We estimate that Google holds the highest combined h-index at 8,016, while universities account for 73% of the deduplicated total across AI organizations.
  4. 20% of people at companies who shape AI also hold a university role, led by Google and Stanford UniversityIncludes Google. We estimate that 539 of the 6,766 people with a known current organization (8%) hold both a university role and a company role, including 20% of people at companies and 13% of people at universities.

Colleagues

People with dated positions at the same organization in the same years.

Sources and credits

Photo: We have no published photo of Manjunath Kudlur yet. Send us a free-licensed photo.

  1. CCCP: People cccp.eecs.umich.edu. Checked 21 October 2026.
  2. Research at Google research.google.com. Checked 21 October 2026.
  3. Speaker: Manjunath Kudlur: O'Reilly TensorFlow World | Machine Learning Conference conferences.oreilly.com. Checked 21 October 2026.
  4. Dynamic Control Flow in Large-Scale Machine Learning research.google. Checked 21 October 2026.
  5. Useful Sensors Selects OKdo as its Global Single Board Computer Solutions Partner - Edge AI and Vision Alliance edge-ai-vision.com. Checked 21 October 2026.
  6. [2410.15608] Moonshine: Speech Recognition for Live Transcription and Voice Commands arxiv.org. Checked 21 October 2026.
  7. [2509.02523] Flavors of Moonshine: Tiny Specialized ASR Models for Edge Devices arxiv.org. Checked 21 October 2026.
  8. [2602.12241] Moonshine v2: Ergodic Streaming Encoder ASR for Latency-Critical Speech Applications arxiv.org. Checked 21 October 2026.
  9. GitHub - moonshine-ai/moonshine-v2 github.com. Checked 21 October 2026.
  10. About Moonshine AI translator.moonshine.ai. Checked 21 October 2026.