About the lecture
What if information could be transmitted through a noisy channel using almost no power? Or messages could reach their intended devices without conventional addressing information?
Information theory helps us understand the fundamental limits of how information is compressed, represented and transmitted. Yet, in some scenarios, these limits lead to unexpected possibilities.
In this lecture, Professor Wei Yu explores two surprising findings: the possibility of transmitting information at a positive rate using infinitesimal transmit power, and communicating with selected active devices in large wireless networks without the usual addressing overhead.
Discover how these findings challenge conventional expectations and what they could mean for cooperative communications and massive random access in wireless networking.
About the speaker
Wei Yu is a Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Toronto. He earned his bachelor’s degree in computer engineering and mathematics from the University of Waterloo and his master’s and PhD degrees in electrical engineering from Stanford University.
He held a Canada Research Chair in Information Theory and Wireless Communications from 2002 to 2026 and served as President of the IEEE Information Theory Society in 2021.
A Fellow of IEEE and the Canadian Academy of Engineering, Professor Yu is also a Clarivate Highly Cited Researcher. His numerous honours include the 2025 R.A. Fessenden Silver Medal, the 2024 IEEE Communications Society and Information Theory Society Joint Paper Award, and the 2019 IEEE Marconi Prize Paper Award in Wireless Communications.