IBM commits US$240 million to fund an MIT A.I. lab
Researchers will focus their efforts on two fields: health care and cybersecurity
By Jordan Novet
IBM said it will spend US$240 million to open a Watson-branded artificial intelligence research lab in collaboration with a long-time partner, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
IBM has made larger financial commitments in the past. Still, the amount of money is notable in the world of AI research.
MIT is no stranger to that field: The university was home to one of the first AI labs and continues to be well regarded as a place to do work in the sector.
And MIT is also accustomed to working with IBM. In the 1950s Big Blue worked on a computer for an air defense system together with MIT’s Lincoln Laboratory, and in the 1980s IBM Research and MIT were both part of a consortium on superconductivity.
The new deal, which will play out over a decade, is a reply to academic partnerships formed recently by other technology companies. In July Alphabet’s DeepMind group committed to growing its AI research presence with the University of Alberta in Canada. Alphabet and Microsoft have also made announcements about gifts to fund research at McGill University and the University of Montreal — but the total of contributions between the two companies in Montreal falls below US$10 million.