MIT (pioneer in education) and IBM ( A giant in computer research) both are well known entities for their research. Both are joining hands to research on AI.
IBM and MIT both announced today that IBM plans to invest 10 years, $240 million to create MIT-IBM Watson Lab, that will carry out fundamental artificial intelligence (AI) research and seek to propel scientific breakthroughs that unlock the potential of AI. The main purpose of collaboration is to advance AI hardware, software and algorithm related to deep learning and other areas. Also, to research on impact of AI on economy and ethical implications on society.
The lab will be co-chaired by Dario Gil, IBM Research VP of AI and Anantha P. Chandrakasan, dean of MIT’s School of Engineering.
The new lab will be one of the largest long-term university-industry AI collaborations to date, mobilizing the talent of more than 100 AI scientists, professors, and students to pursue joint research at IBM’s Research Lab in Cambridge—co-located with the IBM Watson Health and IBM Security headquarters in Kendall Square, in Cambridge, Massachusetts—and on the neighboring MIT campus.
Dario Gil wrote in his blog post
AI technology today has been extraordinarily successful at performing individual tasks effectively, though with considerable effort and oversight by the people who train the models. Through this collaboration, we will target innovations that will move us beyond specialized tasks to more general approaches to solving more complex problems, with the added capability of robust, continuous learning. We will explore not only how to best leverage big data when available, but also learn from limited data to personalize and augment human intelligence
The research is based on four pillars
The MIT- IBM Watson AI Lab is currently assembling a diverse team to tackle some of AI’s greatest challenges. The lab’s scientists and engineers will focus on fundamental scientific breakthroughs, publish their results, and help guide the development of AI. A distinct objective of the lab is also to encourage MIT faculty and students to launch new companies that will focus on commercializing AI inventions and technologies that are developed at the lab. The lab will issue a call for proposals for MIT and IBM researchers soon.
Official website http://mitibmwatsonailab.mit.edu/
This isn’t the first time that IBM and MIT have worked together. Last year, IBM and the MIT Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences started a machine vision study. IBM has also partnered with MIT’s Broad Institute and Harvard for a multi-year study of AI’s effects on Genomics.
