Columbia Holds Campus-Wide Summit on Artificial Intelligence

The day-long series of events showcased the unparalleled depth of the University’s AI expertise.

March 05, 2025

Data Science Institute Director Garud Iyengar speaks at the Columbia AI Summit. (Michael DiVito/Columbia University)

Experts from neuroscience, healthcare, social work, engineering, and the arts, among other fields, gathered across three Columbia campuses on Tuesday to explore major questions in the rapidly evolving field of artificial intelligence.

In a day-long series of events at Columbia’s Morningside, Manhattanville, and medical campuses, speakers explored technical, clinical, and social challenges of deploying AI.

Sami Haddadin, director of the Munich Institute of Robotics and Machine Intelligence and vice president for research at MBZUAI, delivered the summit’s closing keynote address, “Robots and the Search for Universal Intelligence: How Machines Learn to Move, Think, and Adapt.”

In addition to panel discussions, which were open to members of the Columbia community and livestreamed online, the summit included poster sessions in which Columbia students and researchers shared details of projects that deploy AI. Satellite workshops offering an in-depth exploration of AI’s impact on specific domains and disciplines also took place at Columbia’s various campuses throughout the day.

Virtually all of Columbia’s schools participated in the summit, which explored questions such as AI’s effects on the labor market and on artists, whether machines have free will, and how AI can be used to help untangle our understanding of the brain, address the climate crisis, and advance cancer research.

The initiative was organized by Columbia AI, a new initiative that aims to promote Columbia’s work on artificial intelligence, with courses, curricula, events, digital tools, and more. Columbia AI is led by Data Science Institute Director Garud Iyengar, in partnership with Columbia Engineering Dean Shih-Fu Chang and Executive Vice President for Research Jeannette Wing.