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US Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo recently announced that the Department of Commerce’s National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has awarded $6 million to Carnegie Mellon University, CMU to establish a joint center to support cooperative research and experimentation for the test and evaluation of modern AI capabilities and tools.
The CMU/NIST AI Measurement Science & Engineering Cooperative Research Center (AIMSEC) will seek to advance measurement science for modern AI systems, using stakeholder partnerships in a wide range of application domains — including human services, education, finance, transportation, energy and more — to test approaches and translate assessment capabilities and methodologies into practice.
The new university-wide center will be housed at CMU’s Heinz College of Information Systems and Public Policy.
Ramayya Krishnan, dean of the Heinz College of Information Systems and Public Policy and William W. and Ruth F. Cooper Professor of Management Science and Information Systems, will be the lead research coordinator for AIMSEC. Krishnan said, “AIMSEC will work closely with stakeholders to develop tools and standards that ensure AI systems are trustworthy and secure across various sectors, from finance to transportation.”
Krishnan has extensive experience and expertise in public policy. He serves on the IT and Services Advisory Board chaired by Gov. Tom Wolf of the State of Pennsylvania and is a member of the policy advisory board of the GAO chaired by Gene Dodaro, Comptroller General of the United States. He was appointed to the National AI Advisory Committee to the President of the United States and the National AI Initiatives office in 2022.
He is a distinguished alumnus of both the Indian Institute of Technology and the University of Texas at Austin.
“Artificial intelligence is the defining technology of our generation, and at the Commerce Department we are committed to working with America’s world-class higher education institutions, like Carnegie Mellon University, to advance safe, secure and trustworthy development of AI,” Raimondo said.
“Carnegie Mellon University is looking forward to partnering with NIST on research and development that will enable the trustworthy deployment of AI-driven decisions and systems,” said CMU President Farnam Jahanian.
Carnegie Mellon University is a pioneer in AI technology development, in the study and analysis of AI deployments as socio-technical systems, and a leader in AI ethics and policy with several hundred faculty already focused on ensuring the safe and responsible development and use of AI.
