Innovation accelerated: MBZUAI announces new center of Foundation Models to spearhead research and application of generative AI

Mohamed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence (MBZUAI) – the world’s first graduate-level research institution dedicated to the study of artificial intelligence (AI) – has launched The Institute of Foundation Models.

Established to respond to the pressing demand of the development of transformative AI, the institute will further cement the UAE’s position of leadership in Generative AI through academic research and development that can be used for multiple applications.

The Institute will bring in top AI scientists, engineers, and practitioners to develop large-scale, reusable, and affordable AI models with the capacity to be adapted to a wide range of down-stream applications that are sustainable for an increasing number of sectors and industries.

MBZUAI President and University Professor, Eric Xing, said, ”The mission of the IFM is to position our academic research at the forefront of Generative AI development, and ground it on substantial societal needs. This institute will be the hub of activity for fundamental research in areas we already have pioneered with the ability to focus those energies now into a wide spectrum of powerful foundation models such as the GPTs for lingual, visual, and biological data that can be used in industries dedicated to healthcare, climate change and sustainability, and in turn advance the innovation of foundation models itself. The options are endless and we look forward to partnering with others in this area.”

The Institute will focus on the development of multi-modal foundation models offering multiple capabilities such as multi-lingual chatbots, audio and vision capable of social media content analysis, personalized medicine, finance, and environmental engineering. As a university with departments specializing in all core areas of AI, MBZUAI possesses a unique, cross-disciplinary research environment that makes it ideally placed to lead foundation model research.

MBZUAI has already received global attention for its research in large language models (LLMs) including Jais, the world’s most advanced, open-source Arabic LLM model, which was launched in August with G42’s Core 42 and Cerebras Systems, for its involvement with Meta’s Llama 2 and for the open-source chatbot Vicuna. Delivering exceptional output with a sustainable footprint, Vicuna has been downloaded more than three million times to date.

In the four years since its establishment, MBZUAI’s prodigious research output has elevated the university into the top 20 institutions globally according to the latest CSRankings (computer science rankings), in AI, Computer Vision, Machine Learning, NLP and Robotics alongside institutions such as Carnegie Mellon University, MIT, the University of California, Berkeley, ETH Zurich, and the University of Washington. Further cementing its position at the forefront of international AI research, MBZUAI faculty and students have published more than 1100 papers at leading AI conferences since 2020.

The University also recently welcomed its fourth cohort of students, drawn from more than 34 nationalities, and welcomed earlier this year its fourth cohort of MBZUAI Executive Program alumni last week as it continues to develop a pipeline of skilled and knowledgeable AI talent and leaders to enrich the UAE’s burgeoning tech ecosystem.