Cornell is among more than 50 organizations in industry, government and academia that have signed on as inaugural members of the AI Alliance, an international community of researchers, developers and organizational leaders committed to supporting and enhancing open innovation across the artificial intelligence technology landscape.

IBM and Meta Platforms have co-launched the alliance for the purpose of accelerating progress; improving safety, security and trust in AI; and maximizing benefits to people and society, according to its website.

The alliance is focused on fostering an open community and enabling developers and researchers to accelerate responsible innovation in AI while ensuring scientific rigor, trust, safety, security, diversity and economic competitiveness.

“Cornell looks forward to participating in this AI Alliance, and to the range of participants and perspectives around this table,” said Krystyn Van Vliet, vice president for research and innovation, and professor of materials science and engineering in Cornell Engineering.

“Open innovation has spurred incredible advances in many fields, including AI, and thrives on experimentation and dialogue,” Van Vliet said. “We look forward to contributing to the discussions, technologies and advances that will help the world develop knowledge and tools using AI, as well as a shared sense of responsibility for positive impact on society.”

According to its website, the alliance’s mission is “to continually build and release the world’s most advanced, trusted and safe open technology for AI, and inform and enable scientists, developers, policymakers, business leaders and the general public.”

“Universities have a critical role to play in developing AI that benefits society and humanity,” said Kavita Bala, dean of the Cornell Ann S. Bowers College of Computing and Information Science. “The Cornell AI Initiative is committed to contributing to this partnership through our ongoing efforts in open development of AI for societal good, scientific discovery and innovation.”

In addition to nearly two dozen higher-education institutions worldwide – including Dartmouth College and Yale University – global partners in the AI Alliance include the National Science Foundation, NASA and CERN (the European Organization for Nuclear Research).

“The progress we continue to witness in AI is a testament to open innovation and collaboration across communities of creators, scientists, academics and business leaders,” said Arvind Krishna, chairman and CEO of IBM. “This is a pivotal moment in defining the future of AI. IBM is proud to partner with like-minded organizations through the AI Alliance to ensure this open ecosystem drives an innovative AI agenda underpinned by safety, accountability and scientific rigor.”

Each member organization will commit to furthering the alliance’s mission within one or more of three major topical areas:

• Build and release open technologies for AI, including software, models and related tooling, especially in language and other modalities essential to the health, sustainability and prosperity of society;
• Enable developer and organizational adoption of open-source AI models and tools with advocacy, tutorials, community support, education and training, and use case demonstrations; and
• Advocate for open technology in AI to enable broad benefit, address challenges, and foster trust and safety in the discipline at large to organizational and societal leaders, policy and regulatory bodies, and the public.

The AI Alliance will begin by forming member-driven working groups across all major topical areas, and by establishing a governing board and technical oversight committee.