Yang Cao is an Associate Professor at the Institute of Science Tokyo, where he leads the Trustworthy Data Science and AI (TDSAI) Lab. His research centers on a fundamental question: how can we build AI systems that are not only powerful, but also trustworthy? He and his team develop foundations and systems for improving the privacy, security, and reliability of modern AI and data-driven technologies, with a focus on large language models, agentic AI systems, federated learning, and emerging data infrastructures such as vector databases and data markets. By connecting machine learning, data systems, and security, his work aims to make trustworthy AI both principled and practical.
He received his Ph.D. from Kyoto University and has held positions at Emory University, Kyoto University, and Hokkaido University, as well as a visiting researcher role at Meta. His work has been published in leading venues and recognized by awards including the IEEE Computer Society Japan Young Author Award, the DBSJ Kambayashi Young Researcher Award, and multiple Best/Outstanding Paper Awards. He also serves the research community as an Associate Editor and Program Committee member for major journals and conferences such as VLDB, SIGMOD, KDD, ACM CCS and IEEE TDSC.
