Accelerating Innovation with AI

Spring 2024 | EQuad News 35, Issue 2

At Princeton Engineering, we see AI as a powerful tool that can enhance human capability to achieve what humans could never do on their own.

Student giving a presentation. — Russakovsky codirects an AI4ALL summer program at Princeton, where high school students learn programming and AI basics and collaborate on research projects. They present their results at the end of the three-week session. Photo by Lori Nichols

Diversifying AI through data collection and career development

Mengdi Wang in her office with math on the whiteboard in background. — Mengdi Wang in her Princeton office. Photo by Sameer A. Khan/Fotobuddy

Mengdi Wang makes a play at decoding disease

Speaker at podium in front of screen that says AI for Control, Design and Creation. — Mengdi Wang, associate professor of electrical and computer engineering and co-director of one of several new AI initiatives, spoke at Princeton’s recent AI Summit. Photo by Sameer A. Khan/Fotobuddy

New initiatives bring Princeton to the fore of AI innovation

Three researchers stand in front of a white board discussing mathematics written on the board. — Boris Hanin, talking here with postdoctoral researchers Gage DeZoort and Mufan Li, is applying his background in mathematical physics to understand the structural properties of large neural networks that power AI systems. Photo by Sameer A. Khan/Fotobuddy

Statistics start to untangle AI networks

Two instructors speak to students while standing before a white board — Arvind Narayanan and Matthew Salganik, professor of sociology, teach a course for graduate students on “Limits to Prediction.” The course offers tools for critical examination of artificial intelligence and other prediction methods in various areas. Photos by Sameer Khan/Fotobuddy

Is AI too dangerous to release openly?

Two robotic arms poised over plastic storage containers of sorted objects. In between the storage containers are additional items to be sorted, including a detergent bottle and two wooden blocks, colored yellow and orange. — Engineers at Princeton University and Google developed a new way to teach robots to know when they don’t know and ask for clarifica-tion from a human. The researchers tested their method on a simulated robotic arm and on two types of robot hardware. Photo by the researchers

How do you make a robot smarter?

Verma posing in his lab with technical equipment. — Professor Naveen Verma will lead a U.S.-backed project to supercharge AI hardware based on a suite of key inventions from his Princeton laboratory. Photo by Sameer A. Khan/Fotobuddy

The next AI frontier? Expanding hardware by making it more compact.

Microscope image of tin crystals, showing protruding, jagged, smooth, and stunted 3-dimensional features. — A scanning electron microscope image of tin crystals, stimulated by electricity and growing on a copper surface. A new method developed by Princeton researchers could speed up the process of designing and testing new crystalline materials. Image by Lynn Trahey, Argonne National Laboratory

Researchers harness large language models to accelerate materials discovery

Male researcher flattens his hands above glass-topped machine while female researcher looks on — Professor Ryan Adams and graduate student Cindy Zhang work with a laser cutter. Photo by Tori Repp/Fotobuddy

This AI does more than just think

Three men stand in a hallway. — Left to right: study authors Ricardo Shousha, Egemen Kolemen, and Azarakhsh Jalalvand stand in Maeder Hall. Photo by Adena Stevens

Using AI to wrangle fusion energy

Five race cars on a track.

Data drives quicker, safer decisions for race cars and robots