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Researchers bag $1.1 M grant for short video innovation
The grant will support developing efficient video delivery, predictive algorithms, CDN optimization, reduced device load, and educational modules.
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Bhavana P - Mon, 15, Sep 2025
- 16:10 EDT
- 6
(L-R) Indranil Gupta and Deepak Vasisht / University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
The National Science Foundation (NSF) has awarded a $1.1 million Medium project grant to Indian-American researchers at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign to transform the way short videos are delivered across digital platforms.
The project, titled LANDS – Learning-Based Adaptive Networked Systems for Delivery of Short Videos, is led by Indranil Gupta, professor of computer science in the Siebel School of Computing and Data Science within the Grainger College of Engineering, and by Deepak Vasisht, assistant professor of computer science.
Also read: Shipra Arya receives American Heart Association grant
The research aims to optimize computing and network resources while reducing the burden on user devices. It will also support educational initiatives by offering targeted modules on short-video streaming.
Gupta, the project’s lead principal investigator, noted that “Content Distribution Networks (CDNs) have been around for decades, and they serve different classes of traffic, from web to multimedia to Internet of Things traffic classes. Short videos are a new, quickly growing class of traffic that CDNs have to increasingly contend with.”
Vasisht highlighted the project’s interdisciplinary focus, explaining that “we researchers always want to be working at the cutting edge, looking at new systems that are quickly gaining in popularity. Short video systems are one of these. It is an area that is relatively unexplored, and in which papers have just started to be published by other researchers. We at Illinois want to be part of that vanguard of seminal research in that area.”
The team, which includes co-principal investigator Deepti Raghavan of Brown University and PhD student Maleeha Masood, will explore caching strategies, use large language models to predict user behavior, and build ontologies for short video systems. Masood’s interest in platforms like TikTok has contributed to shaping the project’s direction.
Short videos, including TikTok, YouTube Shorts, and Instagram Reels, represent a rapidly growing portion of internet traffic, influencing entertainment, education, advertising, and citizen reporting. The Illinois team’s work aims to place networked systems research at the forefront of this emerging digital media landscape.
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