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I think computer science is another field that individuals can potentially break through the academic wall, because you would only need a decent desktop to do your research... (I think quite a lot of resarchers do stuff in AI, graphics, etc using gaming-level PCs instead of huge workstations/servers)

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This is true in general, but deep learning with lots of hyperparameters gives an advantage to organizations with clusters that can run a huge hyperparameter search quickly.

SigOpt (YC W15) has an academic program that allows full access to their optimization platform for academic use [1]. Hundreds of academics around the world have used it and there are already dozens of papers that have been published that have benefited from it [2].

These techniques can be orders of magnitude more efficient than a standard hyperparameter search and really cut down the barrier to entry for these types of results.

[1]: https://sigopt.com/solution/for-academia/

[2]: https://sigopt.com/research/publications/

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