This is the fourth edition of the Asian Symposium on Cellular Automata Technology (ASCAT 2025), to be held from March 06 to March 08, 2025. The Third edition of ASCAT (ASCAT 2024) was held in hybrid mode on February 29 – March 02, 2024 . This time the event is organised in offline mode. The Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Birla Institute of Technology, Mesra (BIT Mesra) officially organizes the symposium on its main campus in Jharkhand (Mesra, Ranchi), India. The symposium aims two-fold: to nurture cellular automata theories and explore cellular automata as technology. So all the theoretical aspects of cellular automata and their applications in any domain are within the scope of this symposium.

Since long, India has played a significant role in research on cellular automata (CAs): theory and applications. Several workshops and seminars on CAs have also been organized in India. Not only India, other Asian countries like Japan, Turkey, Vietnam, Taiwan, etc., also contribute significantly in Cellular Automata research. In fact, to this date, an essential part of research in cellular automata, both in terms of quality and quantity, comes from the Asian community of CAs researchers. Many of them work in the domain of Cellular Automata Technology. This symposium can be seen as a consequence of the contributions of these researchers.

In the recent past, during the pandemic period, some of the Indian researchers have come forward in creating a virtual research group, Cellular Automata India, where most of the cellular automata researchers and scientists from India, as well as many renowned scientists from around the globe have joined. Three webinar series were already organized from this platform where eminent scientists delivered invited talks and shared their research with the audience. A lecture series in memory of Edward Fredkin was organised during April-May 2024. Another lecture series in memory of John Horton Conway was also organised during April, 2021, and later an edited book (The Mathematical Artist: A Tribute to John Horton Conway was published, including the lectures and some invited articles. The recording of the events are available at Cellular Automata India YouTube channel. The ASCAT can be considered as an annual event of this virtual group.

Topics

The symposium aims two-fold: to nurture cellular automata theories and explore cellular automata as technology. In particular, the topics of interest include (but is not limited to) the following:

• Algebraic and Theoretical aspects of CA

• Cellular Automata Models and Computation

• Non-uniformity in Cellular Automata

• Cellular Automata, Hardware Design and Security

• Quantum-dot Cellular Automata

• Cellular Automata, Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence

• Emerging Applications of Cellular Automata

Publication

Accepted papers of the conference will appear in the proceedings published by Springer Nature in the book series CCIS (Communications in Computer and Information Science).

Extended versions of a selected number of papers presented at the conference is planned to be published in a special issue of Complex Systems.

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