MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory

MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) is a research institute at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) formed in 2003. The largest research laboratory at MIT, CSAIL pursues fundamental research across computer science and AI, including both new theoretical approaches and the creation of applications with broad societal impact. CSAIL played a critical role in the computer revolution and developments such as time-sharing, massive parallel computers, public key encryption, mass commercialization of robots, and much of the technology underlying the ARPANet, Internet and the World Wide Web. CSAIL members have launched more than 100 companies, and the lab is home to World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), Wireless@MIT, BigData@CSAIL, Cybersecurity@CSAIL, and the MIT Information Policy Project (IPP).

CSAIL has over 900 researchers (including professors, research scientists, postdocs, PhDs, master's students, and undergrads), more than 60 research groups working on hundreds of projects, and an annual research budget of $65M. The lab's research activities can be divided into three principal areas:

1. Artificial Intelligence (AI)—understanding and developing systems (living and artificial) capable of intelligent reasoning, perception, and behavior
2. Systems—discovering common principles, models, metrics, and tools of computer systems, both hardware and software
3. Theory—researching the mathematics of computation and its consequences

CSAIL students are encouraged to participate in its research projects. Undergraduate students can become involved in projects through the Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program (UROP), and research assistantships are available to graduate students. Graduate students are typically enrolled in the departments of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Mathematics, Aeronautics and Astronautics, Brain and Cognitive Sciences, and Mechanical Engineering, and the MIT-Harvard Health Sciences and Technology Program.

CSAIL's senior leadership is made up of a director and two associate directors, one of which is also the COO. In 2012, Daniela Rus became the director of CSAIL and is the first woman to hold the position. Senior leadership is aided by the CSAIL cabinet, the enterprise services leadership, and Communities of Research (CoRs). Organized by broad and shared technical interests, CoRs represent the largest research units in CSAIL. Each CoR includes a principal investigator and their research team. As of 2023, CSAIL has nine CoRs:

• Applied Machine Learning
• Cognitive AI
• Computing and Society
• Embodied Intelligence
• Human-Computer Interaction
• Systems
• Theory of Computation
• Vertical AI
• Visual Computing

Below CoRs are the smaller research groups and centers, of which there are more than sixty. Each group or center is focused on a specific research area and is headed by one or multiple principal investigators.

CSAIL is housed in the Stata Center, a 720,000-square-foot building on the MIT campus in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

The Stata Center that houses CSAIL on the MIT campus.

Designed by Frank Gehry, the Stata Center was built on the site of the famous Building 20, MIT's "Magical Incubator" that housed the radiation laboratory where engineers refined the development of radar and was home to an assortment of laboratories, organizations, and groups that made groundbreaking contributions to science and technology. Opened in 2004, the Stata Center is also home to MIT's Laboratory for Information and Decision Systems (LIDS) and the Department of Linguistics and Philosophy.

CSAIL has its roots in two MIT computing laboratories: The Laboratory for Computer Science (LCS) and the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (AI Lab). LCS was founded in 1963 as Project MAC (Multiple Access Computing or Machine-Aided Cognition), a project sponsored by the Department of Defense to develop a computer system accessible to a large number of people. Projects to come out of Project MAC and LCS include time-sharing systems like the Compatible Time-Sharing System (CTSS) and Multics, which both allowed multiple users to share the resources of a single large computer. These systems also inspired the development of Unix and laid the foundation for many of the basic design concepts for modern software and operating systems.

The AI Lab was founded as the AI project in 1958 and went on to do important work pioneering new methods. These included image-guided surgery and natural-language-based Web access, new generations of microdisplays, haptic interfaces, and bacterial robots and behavior-based robots used for planetary exploration, military reconnaissance, and in consumer devices.

With a growing number of collaborations between the two labs and the construction of a major new building to house the information sciences faculties at MIT, the two labs merged in 2003 to form CSAIL.

CSAIL and its predecessors have produced hundreds of spin-off companies. Notable examples include:

• Akamai
• Boston Dynamics
• Cambridge Mobile Telematics
• Dropbox
• iRobot
• ITA Software
• Meraki
• Nimble VR
• OKCupid
• RSA Security

CSAIL faculty and students have received some of the world's most prestigious awards, memberships in organizations like NAE (National Academy of Engineering) and NAS (National Academy of Sciences), and fellowships from professional groups like AAAS (American Association for the Advancement of Science), ACM (Association for Computing Machinery), and IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers). Distinguished honors received by CSAIL and its predecessors include the following:

The Turing Award:

• Robert Metcalfe (2022)
• Tim Berners-Lee (2016)
• Michael Stonebraker (2014)
• Shafi Goldwasser (2012)
• Silvio Micali (2012)
• Barbara Liskov (2008)
• Ron Rivest (2002)
• Butler Lampson (1992)
• Fernando "Corby" Corbato (1990)
• Marvin Minsky (1969)

MacArthur Fellowships:

• Josh Tenebaum (2019)
• Regina Barzilay (2017)
• Dina Katabi (2013)
• Daniela Rus (2002)
• Peter Shor (1999)
• Tim Berners-Lee (1998)
• Jack Wisdom (1994)
• Richard Stallman (1990)

Rolf Nevanlinna Prize

• Constantinos Daskalakis (2018)
• Madhu Sudan (2002)
• Peter Shor (1998)