MIT FutureTech

Mission: By drawing on computer science, economics and management, we aim to identify and understand trends in computing that create opportunities for (or pose risks to) our ability to sustain economic growth. Our goal is to understand and identify levers of influence that enable leaders in computing, scientific funding bodies, and policymakers to better promote the computational foundations of prosperity. We run seminars and conferences to better connect the field of computer scientists, economists and innovation scholars to build a thriving global research community. Impact: Our research has been published in leading journals and conferences, including Science, Nature Communications, Communications of the ACM, IEEE Spectrum, and many more. Our research has been covered by the Washington Post, Nature, Wired, VentureBeat, HPCWire, The Guardian, The Economist, IEEE Spectrum, and many others. We also advise governments, nonprofits and industry, including via National Academies panels on transformational technologies and scientific reliability, the Council on Competitiveness’ National Commission on Innovation and Competitiveness Frontiers, and the National Science Foundation’s National Network for Critical Technology Assessment. Funding: The FutureTech project is supported by grants from Open Philanthropy, the National Science Foundation, Accenture, IBM, the MIT-Air Force AI accelerator, and the MIT Lincoln Laboratory.