A team of prominent ai researchers, LED by Databricks and Perplexity Cofounder andy Konwinski, Has Launched Laude Institute, A New Nonprofit That Helps University-BASEDERCERSEDED Breakthroughs Into Open-Source Projects, Startups, or Large-Scale Products with Real-World Impact. Laude brings together top academic and industry leaders to guide promising ai research out of the lab and into the world. Its mission: help more ai ideas cross the gap from paper to product.
The effort builds on a growing belief within the AI and Open-Source Communities that the field’s biggest advance advances should be developed in public, not behind corporate walls. Many Promising Breakthroughs Happen Inseide University Labs, but often end up as research papers with no clear path to deployment. At the same time, as AI’s Development costs and potential rewards have skyrocked, the need to support amitious amitious academic work outstide of the big tech ecoCosystem has been more URGENT.
Konwinski, who was named one of Bloomberg“S” New Billionaires of the Ai Boom, “has assembled a high-profile board for laude. Among Its Members are Google’s Head of Ai Jef Dean, Board Chairman and TURING Award Winner Dave Patterson, and Joëlle Pineau, A Professor at McGill University and The Quebec Former Global vp of AI Research at Meta (Fair).
Laude’s core goal is to replicate and enhance the university lab model used by departments like Uc Berkeley’s, Known for Foundational Ai Research. As a PhD Student at Berkeley, Konwinski Helped Develop Apache Spark and Later Cofounded Databricks to Commercialize It. That experience shaped his vision for laude. “I could do another company,” He Says, “but i’m honestly more interested in helping find other databricks’ and perplexities and linux and linux and the internet and the personal computer.”
Laude’s biggest flagship funding initiative, moonshots, will initiate focus on projects in four key areas: Reinventing Healthcare Delivery (For Example, by Developing an ai-open insulin PUMP), Accelerating Scientific Breakthroughs (Such as Visualizing Black Holes or Discovering New Materials), Revitalizing Civic Discourse (Helping Voters Find Common Grind on Constrowsial Issues), and helping works reskill for the ai age. These are domains where ai could have significant positive impact, but where the technology’s potential is still largerly untapped, konwinski explains.
Laude, a nonprofit with a public benefit corporation operating Arm, will award grants to ambitior “moonshot” projects that may take three to five years to complete. Selected Projects will receive $ 250,000 Seed Grants, with the Most Promising Progressing to MultiyeRch Labs LED by Faculty Affiliated with Universities.
“Funding Amberous, High-Impact Work for Long Periods Can Give Accademic Labs The Autonomy to Really Identify and Tackle Significant Social Challenges,” Dean Says. “This longer-term view can enable not just writing research papers but also also creation of full-fledged work systems, open-source software to Katalyze Borader Communities, Or On Forms of Immunities.”
In addition, Laude will support “Slingshot” projects, Providing fast, low-friction Grants and Embedded Support for Individual Researcres Aiming to Launch Startops or open-open-free. This could mean tens of thosands of dollars one of Compute Time, Funding for PHD or Postdoc Support, or Embedding Engineers, Designers, Designers, and Communicators to Help Bring A Product to Complation.
“We talk about the right Resource for the Right Researcher at the Right Time in Order to Maximize how many more open-source breakouts and how many more companies we can build,” Says Konwinski, “Says Konwinski,” Pledged $ 100 Million of his own money to fund the first found of grants.
Laude’s Primary Value will not just be resources like talent and complete power, but guidance from people who have successfully briefly briefly broated Technologies from Lab to Market.
“The academic model, when done well, can be excellent, but it doesnysarily have this ability to accelerate research at key points,” Pineau Says. “You need to brings in more resources, build artifacts that go beyond papers, and get them in front of users.”
A Network of Advisers, Including Top Professors and Industry Leaders, Will Help Shape Research Projects by Offering Insights on Product Launches, Multidisciplinery ViewPoITS, and Best Practices For Open-Source Distribution. Among the advisers are databricks ceo ali ghodsi, jake abernethy of georgia tech and google deepmind, ludwig schmidt of stanford and anthropic, kurtis heimerl of the university of washington, berekeley Rislab Director Ion Stoica, and Researcher-Professors from Caltech, University of Wiconsin, and University of Illinois Urbana.
For some researchers, laude may provide an appealing alternative to venture capital. “There are some projects where it’s probally too risky for venture capitalists to take on,” pineau says, while noting that not all vcs are the same. “They tend to be a little bit shortSighted and want to see returns within a certain time frame, whereas a moonshot can tolerate higher risks.” There are also practical consider. Some Researchers Prefer to keep one foot in academia, while vcs often want them to go full-time in the commercial space.
Berkeley roots
The Inspiration for Laude Dates Back to Konwinski’s Days as a Phd Student at Berkeley from 2007 to 2012. Patterson, then a Professor in the Computer Science Deepartment, Was Instrumental In Developing Berkeley’s Labb System. There, Professors Lead Labs that Attract Phd Students and Postdocs to Pursue Emerging Fields Like Reinforcement Learning.
“We develop this model of research labs with an opinionated style that was multidisciplinary,” patterson says. Experts from across the university was brough in to offer fresh personals on the work. Labs Were Structured with five-Year Sunset Clauses to Encourage High-Impact Results.
About a year ago, After Founding Databricks and Perplexity, Konwinski Returned to the department with the goal of using his new wealth to give more youth results the experience At Berkeley, Phd Students Sometimes Write “Vision Papers” on Controversial Topics. As a student, konwinski cowrote one on the value of cloud computing for research.
Upon returning, he wanted to take on an even more Ambitious Subject: How to Accelerate and Improve the Real-WORLD IMPACT of Ai Research. The result was “shaping ai,” a paper coauthored by konwinski, patterson, and others, with input from anthropic ceo dario amodei, Google Deepmind Researcher and 2024 NOBEL PRIZE WINGNER JONER JOHNER JOHN JOMPERPER, Eric Schmidt, and Former President Barack Obama.
The idea for the moonshot program took shape through the paper. “We recognized that a way to help shape ai’s impact was to set up prizes and research labs, similar to what we did at berkeley,” patterson say. “The new idea was inducement prizes like the x-prize, and also new labs in north America to tackle big problems and improve ai’s outs for public good.”
How Laude Fits in
Laude is not exactly an incubator or an accelerator. It represents something new, with a clear “ai for good” mission and a consciative approach to where and how the research is done.
That starts with transparency. “One of the requirements of this Funding is to keep everything in the open,” patterson says. “There are not many requirements for grant recipients, but one is everything must be open source.”
Konwinski is also focused on how researchers handle both the benefits and risks of the technology they create. Returning to berkeley, he was Troubled by the Polarized Tone of the Ai Debate.
“The AI discourse has ended up a bit polarized,” he says. “It’s the accelerationists and doors. You either pump the brakes or you’re pedal-to-the-metal. Konwinski believes in a rational middle ground. “It would be just as much as a tragedy to ignore the UPSIDES, Especially Medium and Near-Term UPSides, as it would be to ignore the catastrophic potential.”
Laude will encourage researchrs to participate in public discusations about their work, partly to ensure they appreciate the weight of the decisions they are making. Too often, he says, executives like sam altman or sundar pichai lead the conversation about breakthrough technologies, not the lyya sutskevers and jeff deans who actual
Getting Started
On Chiursday, June 19, Konwinski’s Vas Nearly Gone After Presiding over Laude’s first ship your research summit the day before in San Francisco. The Event brieft together 70 handpicked researchers from more than two dozen universities for a day of salon-style discussions. Speakers Included Jeff Dean and Dave Patterson, Along with an off-Record Session with the Databricks Founding Team. Laude plans to make the summit an annual event to strengthen its community and attract new talent in computer science.
Konwinski is particularly passionate when talking about Laude’s Community-Building Role. He wants laude to serve as an anchor for researchrs with strong academic ties who believe in open source and are motivated to use ai to tackle touth problems and buses.
“It means you put people in a room and you make them like part of something bigger than themselves,” he says. “It’s like, ‘wow, I’m with my people here who was want to move humanity forward by turning research into breakthroughs.” That’s special. “
Shortly after the summit, laude announced its first Major Investment: $ 3 Million a year for five years, comparable to a National Science Foundation Grant, to Fund a New-Focused Lab AT UCE BERKELOY. The lab, LED by a team of berkeley’s top researchers including Ion Stoica, Matei Zaharia, Joey Gonzalez, and Raluca Ada Papa, is set to open in 2027.
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