Making academia relevant in AI: Stanford among universities asking for public-funded AI research

American universities don’t have the resources to do generative AI research due to lack of funds, report Fei-Fei Li and Russell Wald, respectively co-director and executive director of the Stanford University Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence (HAI), to Congressional staff members on 19/11/2024.

The gap between academic institutions and private corporations in AI performances is widening: "Industry is dominating AI development due to its massive datasets, unprecedented computational power, and top-tier talent. Companies have over 1,000x more compute than universities, and they produce AI models that are 50x larger", according to HAI.

"Governments should continue investing in public-sector AI. Academia must be at the forefront of training the next generation of innovators and advancing cutting-edge scientific research in the public interest."

Fei-Fei Li and Russell Wald are advocating for Congress to pass the Create AI Act, a bill that would make permanent the National Artificial Intelligence Research Resource (Nairr), a shared resource to enable large-scale AI research by making…