Celebrating a "game changing" new center
A recent report of the National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence, a commission chaired by former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, reads, in part: “Artificial Intelligence is an inspiring technology. Scientists have already made astonishing progress in fields ranging from biology and medicine to astrophysics by leveraging AI. These advances are not science fair experiments; they are improving life and unlocking mysteries of the natural world. They are the kind of discoveries for which the label ‘game changing’ is not a cliché.”[1]
Today, as we dedicate the Luddy Center for Artificial Intelligence, it is fair to say that we are also celebrating what will be a game changing development for Indiana University, as this visionary new center will be the hub of research at IU in artificial intelligence, and it will put IU and the Luddy School at the forefront of research and education in AI and related areas.
The Indiana University AI Initiative
Indiana University has been a center of research in a number of areas of AI for many years. Artificial intelligence has long been an area of strength of the Department of Computer Science, and, more broadly, IU faculty in the cognitive-, psychological-, and neuro-sciences have also long been engaged in areas of research relevant to AI.
The explosion worldwide of the uses and applications of AI, building on decades of steady research progress, made this the perfect time for IU to establish a major holistic initiative in artificial intelligence.
One of the first phases of this initiative was the announcement in 2019, of the acquisition of Big Red 200, the first university-owned supercomputer of its kind in the country to be configured for artificial intelligence research. Big Red 200 was dedicated on January 20th of 2020—the 200th anniversary of the founding of Indiana University.
Last year, as part of this comprehensive AI initiative, we announced that Raj Acharya, the former dean of the Luddy School, would assume the newly created role of associate vice president for research and AI innovation in the Office of the Vice President for Research. In this role, he has overseen the development of the new Indiana AI Collaboration Center. This center facilitates collaboration between the entire Bloomington campus and the Naval Surface Warfare Center Crane Division, the Indiana National Guard’s new Cyber Battalion, and Indiana industry on the development of AI applications in a wide variety of areas.
The Luddy Center and the mind, brain, machine quadrangle
And, of course, one of the key phases of IU’s AI comprehensive initiative is the establishment of the center we dedicate today.
In 2019, I had the enormous pleasure of announcing an extraordinarily generous gift of $60 million by alumnus Fred Luddy to support the establishment of this initiative as a way of also ensuring the continuing growth, pre-eminence, and national leadership of the school.
In addition to providing support for undergraduate scholarships, graduate fellowships, and endowed chairs and professorships, Fred’s generous gift, of course, provided for the construction of a building to house the Luddy Center for Artificial Intelligence.
The center will be a vibrant, multidisciplinary hub led by the Luddy School, with a particular focus on digital health. Health and medicine are among the fastest-growing research domains for advanced AI and machine learning applications and the use of high-performance computational systems. The Luddy School is already home to many faculty members who are national leaders in AI and digital health. This initiative will catalyze their collaboration with other researchers in IU’s extensive range of health and life science schools, departments, and programs both in Bloomington and Indianapolis.
And further projects in this area, based on IU’s extensive disciplinary strengths in related areas, will be formed as additional support is obtained from other sources. And the Luddy Center will be at the heart of these exciting efforts.
At a number of recent events, I have quoted the renowned professor of landscape architecture Dayton Reuter, who wrote that “The campus is not just leftover spaces between buildings. It is, in fact, a series of designed places that reflect the values an institution wishes to be known for.”[2]
Indiana University wholeheartedly embraces this philosophy, as has been reflected in recent years in the creation of numerous new landscape gateways and the addition and enhancement of public spaces, courtyards, plazas, and open spaces on the Bloomington campus.
The planning for the Luddy AI Center has led to the creation of another such space. Given the proximity to it of Luddy Hall, the home of the Luddy School, the Multidisciplinary Science Building II, which houses IU’s neurosciences programs, the Geological Sciences Building, which houses the cognitive sciences program, and the close proximity of Myles Brand Hall, where other programs of the Luddy School are located, as well as the Psychological and Brain Sciences building, the former surface parking lot bounded by these buildings is now being re-developed as a new green space to be known as the Mind, Brain, and Machine Quadrangle. This will not only further enhance the beauty of the Bloomington campus, but it will also enhance the multidisciplinary collaboration that already occurs between faculty and scholars in all of these facilities. And it will be yet another reflection of the values for which Indiana University wishes to be known.
Special thanks
There is a long list of people to whom we owe enormous debts of gratitude for helping us reach this moment, and, in thanking them, we must, of course, begin with Fred Luddy.
Fred attended IU in the early 1970s and went on to become an information technology pioneer. He worked for a number of companies in Silicon Valley, and in 2004 he founded ServiceNow, a highly successful cloud computing company. An outstanding ambassador for the Luddy School, Fred has been a very active member of its Dean’s Advisory Council. In addition to the generous gift I mentioned a moment ago, Fred also made a generous gift of $8 million in 2015 to help fund the construction this building, now known as Luddy Hall in honor of Fred’s family.
So, on behalf of Indiana University, I want to offer our most sincere thanks once again to Fred Luddy for his dedicated service to the school that now bears his name, and for his willingness to support a major initiative in artificial intelligence at IU through his extraordinarily generous gift.
I also want to thank Provost Lauren Robel; Dennis Groth, interim dean of the Luddy School, and the many faculty members of the Luddy School and other schools whose contributions have helped us reach this day.
I also want to commend Vice President for Research Fred Cate and Associate Vice President for Research and AI innovation Raj Acharya and their many colleagues, as well as Vice President for Information Technology and CIO Rob Lowden, his predecessor Brad Wheeler, and their many colleagues in University Information Technology Services, all of whom, along with faculty colleagues across the university, have made major contributions to IU’s broader AI initiative.
And I want to commend Vice President for Capital Planning and Facilities, Tom Morrison, who could not be with us today; Architect Kalevi Huotilainen and his colleagues at BSA LifeStructures; and the many design and construction professionals who have been integrally involved in the planning and construction of the Luddy Center.
The most powerful tool in generations for benefiting humanity
The report of the National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence, from which I quoted earlier, also noted that artificial intelligence “will be the most powerful tool in generations for benefiting humanity.”[3]
This is, of course, precisely what IU faculty and students affiliated with the Luddy Center for Artificial Intelligence will work to do. All of us at Indiana University look forward to witnessing the major contributions and the major benefits to humanity that will result from their work in this splendid new center.
Source notes
[1] Eric Schmidt, et al., Final Report of the National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence, 2021, Web, Accessed April 21. 2021, URL: https://reports.nscai.gov/final-report/table-of-contents/.
[2] Dayton Reuter, as quoted in David J. Neuman, Building Type Basics for College and University Facilities, (John Wiley and Sons, 2003), 2.
[3][3] Eric Schmidt, et al., Final Report of the National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence, 2021, Web, Accessed April 21. 2021, URL: https://reports.nscai.gov/final-report/table-of-contents/.