Artificial intelligence has advanced rapidly, yet today's systems remain fundamentally reactive—powerful at pattern recognition, but fragile in reasoning, memory, abstraction, and self-reflection. If intelligence is not merely scale, but structure, then the central question is no longer how to build larger models, but how to architect cognition.
In this talk, I present a brain-inspired agent computation architecture that treats intelligence as an executable cognitive system. Drawing inspiration from neuroscience, psychology, and computational systems design, we model agents as layered cognitive architectures—integrating memory consolidation, structured knowledge formation, causal reasoning, meta-cognition, and goal-directed problem solving. Rather than chaining tools, we construct cognitive infrastructure.
To make these ideas concrete, we demonstrate how complex cybersecurity expertise—spanning vulnerability discovery, diagnosis, exploit synthesis, and automated repair—can be encoded as structured cognitive workflows. This serves as a prototype for a broader ambition: the automation of expert reasoning across domains such as autonomous coding, medical analysis, material science, and eventually scientific discovery itself.
Finally, I outline an interdisciplinary path toward Artificial General Intelligence—one that integrates insights from neuroscience, psychology, social sciences, and computer science. The future of AI will not emerge solely from larger models, but from architectures that mirror the organizing principles of the brain, embed alignment at the structural level, and scale intelligence as a form of digital cognitive infrastructure.
The goal is not just smarter machines—but computable cognition.
Executive Director of Cyber Security Research Center and CyberSG R&D Programme Office
Nanyang Technological University
Dr. Yang Liu is currently a full professor at Nanyang Technological University, Executive Director of Cyber Security Research Center @ NTU, and Executive Director of CyberSG R&D Programme Office (CRPO). In 2019, he received the University Leadership Forum Chair professorship at NTU and the President's Chair in 2024.
Dr. Liu specializes in software engineering, cybersecurity, and artificial intelligence. His research has bridged the gap between the theory and practical usage of program analysis, data analysis, and AI to evaluate the design and implementation of software for high assurance and security. Much of his research has been successfully commercialized. By now, he has more than 500 publications in top-tier conferences and journals, 30 best paper awards, and one most influential system award in top software engineering conferences. He is also leading several major research centers and programs, including Cysren, CRPO, Trustworthy AI in NTU (TAICeN), and the CREATE center with ICL on medical device security. He has received a number of prestigious awards, including MSRA Fellowship, TRF Fellowship, Nanyang Assistant Professor, Tan Chin Tuan Fellowship, Nanyang Research Award, ACM Distinguished Speaker, NRF Investigatorship, and NTU Innovator (Entrepreneurship) Award.
