From writing complex code to revolutionizing the recruiting process, artificial intelligence is transforming industries faster than ever before, pushing the boundaries of creativity, productivity, and collaboration in countless fields.
Join the MIT Generative AI Impact Consortium, a collaboration between industry leaders and top MIT minds. As MIT President Sally Kornbluth highlighted last year, the Institute is poised to address the societal impact of generative AI through bold collaborations. Building on this momentum, the coalition, established through MIT’s Generative AI Week and impact papers, aims to harness the transformative power of AI for societal benefit and address challenges before they shape the future in unforeseen ways.
“Generative AI and large-scale language models (LLMs) are transforming everything, with applications across a wide range of disciplines,” said Anantha Chandrakasan, dean of MIT’s School of Engineering and director of innovation and strategy, who leads the consortium. “As we advance newer, more efficient models, MIT is committed to guiding their development and impact on the world.”
Chandrakasan added that the alliance’s vision is rooted in MIT’s core mission. “We are excited and honored to help advance one of President Kornbluth’s strategic priorities on artificial intelligence,” he said. “This effort is unique to MIT, with its focus on breaking down barriers, bringing together fields, and partnering with industry to create substantive and lasting impact. We are excited about our upcoming collaboration.”
Developing a blueprint for the next step in generative AI
The consortium is guided by three key questions posed by Daniel Huttenlocker, dean of the MIT Schwarzman College of Computing and co-chair of the GenAI Dean’s Oversight Group, and it delves beyond AI’s technical capabilities into its potential to transform industries and lives.
- How can collaboration between AI and humans produce results that neither could achieve alone?
- How do AI systems interact with human behavior, and how can we maximize benefits while avoiding risks?
- How can interdisciplinary research lead to the development of better, safer AI technologies that improve human lives?
Artificial intelligence continues to develop rapidly, but its future depends on building a solid foundation. “Everyone recognizes that large-scale language models will transform entire industries, but there’s no solid foundation of design principles yet,” said Tim Kraska, associate professor of electrical engineering and computer science in MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) and faculty co-director of the consortium.
“Now is a great time to look at the fundamentals that will help us use AI more efficiently and safely,” Kraska added.
“What makes this consortium more than just academic research for the distant future is that it is addressing problems whose timelines align with industry needs to drive meaningful progress in real time,” said Vivek F. Farias, the Patrick J. McGovern ’59 Professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management and the consortium’s faculty co-director.
A “perfect combination” of academia and industry
At the core of the Generative AI Impact Consortium are six founding members — Analog Devices, The Coca-Cola Co., OpenAI, Tata Group, SK Telecom and TWG Global — who will work closely with MIT researchers to accelerate breakthroughs and solve industry-shaping problems.
The partnership will leverage MIT expertise and be led by the MIT Office of Innovation and Strategy, working with the MIT Schwarzman School of Computing and all five of MIT’s schools, across multiple schools and disciplines.
“This effort is an ideal bridge between academia and industry,” Chandrakasan said. “This collaboration brings together real-world problems, data, and expertise from companies across a wide range of sectors. MIT researchers will dig deeper into these problems and develop advanced models and applications across a range of domains.”
Industry Partners: Collaborating on AI Development
The alliance’s core mission is collaboration, bringing together MIT researchers and industry partners to unlock the potential of generative AI and ensure its benefits extend to all of society.
Among the founding members is OpenAI, the creator of the AI chatbot that created ChatGPT.
“Collaborations between academics, experts, and labs like this are essential for generative AI to advance in a way that delivers meaningful benefit to society,” said Anna Makanju, vice president of Global Impact at OpenAI, adding that OpenAI “looks forward to working with the MIT Generative AI Consortium to bridge the gap between cutting-edge AI research and practical expertise across a wide range of industries.”
Coca-Cola recognizes opportunity to leverage AI innovation on a global scale: “We see a tremendous opportunity to innovate at the speed of AI and leverage Coca-Cola’s global footprint to make these cutting-edge solutions accessible to everyone,” said Pratik Thakar, Global Vice President and Chief AI Officer. “MIT and The Coca-Cola Company are both deeply committed to innovation and equally focused on developing and using technology in a legal, ethically responsible way.”
For TWG Global, the alliance provides an ideal environment to share knowledge and drive progress. “The strength of this alliance is its unique combination of industry and academic leaders, facilitating the exchange of valuable lessons learned, technological advancements, and access to cutting-edge research,” said Drew Cukor, Director of Data Transformation and Artificial Intelligence. Cukor added that TWG Global is “eager to share our insights and actively engage with leading executives and academics to gain a broader perspective on how others are shaping and applying AI, which is why we believe in the fruits of this alliance.”
The Tata Group believes that this collaboration will be a cornerstone in addressing some of AI’s most pressing challenges. “This alliance will enable Tata to work together, share knowledge and collectively shape the future of generative AI, especially in addressing pressing challenges such as ethical considerations, data privacy and algorithmic bias,” said Aparna Ganesh, vice-chairman, Tata Sons.
Similarly, SK Telecom sees its participation as a springboard for growth and innovation. “By joining this alliance, SK Telecom will have a significant opportunity to strengthen its AI competitiveness in core business areas such as AI agents, AI semiconductors and data centers (AIDC) and physical AI,” explained Jeong Seok-geun (SG), executive vice president and global head of AI at SK Telecom. “By collaborating with MIT and utilizing SK’s AI R&D center as a technology control tower, we aim to predict next-generation AI technology trends, propose innovative business models and promote commercialization through industry-academia collaboration.”
Alan Lee, chief technology officer at Analog Devices (ADI), emphasized that the partnership fills a critical knowledge gap for the company and the industry at large: “While ADI can’t hire world-class experts for every tough case, this partnership will give us access to top MIT researchers and allow them to participate in solving the problems we care about, while also collaborating with other companies in the industry toward common goals,” he said.
The coalition will host interactive workshops and discussions to identify and prioritize challenges. “This will be a two-way dialogue, not just between faculty and industry partners, but also between industry partners themselves,” said Georgia Perakis, interim John C. Head III dean of the MIT Sloan School of Management and professor of operations management, operations research, and statistics, who co-chairs the GenAI Dean’s Oversight Group with Hattenlocker.
Preparing for the AI-enabled workforce of the future
AI is poised to transform industries and create new opportunities, and one of the Alliance’s main goals is to lead that change in a way that benefits both business and society.
“When the first commercial digital computers were introduced (the UNIVAC was delivered to the U.S. Census Bureau in 1951), people were worried about losing their jobs,” Kraska said. “And certainly, jobs like large manual data entry clerks and human ‘computers’ who did manual calculations all but disappeared over time. But the people affected by the first computers were trained to do other jobs.”
The Alliance aims to play a key role in developing the workforce of the future by educating business leaders and employees around the world on the emerging applications and uses of generative AI. As the pace of innovation accelerates, leaders are faced with a flood of information and uncertainty.
“When it comes to educating leaders about generative AI, it’s important to help them navigate the complexity of the field right now because it’s so heavily hyped, with hundreds of articles published every day,” Kraska said. “The challenge is figuring out which developments have the potential to truly transform the field, and which are just incremental improvements. There’s a kind of FOMO for leaders, and we can help mitigate that.”
Defining success: A shared goal for the impact of AI
Success in this effort will be defined by shared progress, open innovation, and shared growth. “I think the people in this alliance realize that if I share my ideas with them and they share their ideas with me, it’s fundamentally better for both of us,” Farias explains. “Progress in generative AI is not zero-sum, so it makes sense for this effort to be open source.”
While each participant will approach success from a different angle, they share a common goal: advancing AI for the common good of society. “There will be many metrics by which we measure success,” Perrakis said. “We educate students who connect with companies. Companies come together and learn from each other. Business leaders come to MIT and have discussions that benefit all of us, not just the leaders.”
For ADI’s Alan Lee, success is measured by tangible improvements that drive efficiency and product innovation: “For us at ADI, it’s about delivering a better, faster quality experience for our customers, which means better products. This means faster design cycles, faster validation cycles, and faster adaptation of existing and future devices. But more than that, we want to contribute to making the world a better, more productive place.”
Ganesh is focused on success in terms of practical application: “Success will also be defined by accelerating the adoption of AI across the Tata Group and generating actionable insights that can be applied in real-world scenarios and deliver significant benefits to customers and stakeholders,” she said.
Generative artificial intelligence is no longer confined to isolated labs, but is driving innovation across industries and disciplines. At MIT, the technology has become a university-wide priority, connecting researchers, students, and industry leaders to solve complex challenges and explore new opportunities. “This is truly an MIT effort,” Farias says. “It’s an effort much bigger than any one individual or department at the school.”
