Intel, Technion Launch Joint Center For Artificial Intelligence

The prestigious Technion-Israel Institute of Technology in cooperation with US chipmaker giant Intel Corporation has announced the launch of a new Center for Artificial Intelligence this week. The center will advance research in AI fields and collaboration between Technion and Intel researchers, a statement from the university said.

Intel Chief Technology Officer Dr. Michael Mayberry and Naveen Rao, corporate vice president and general manager of the Artificial Intelligence Products Group, were on hand to represent Intel at the center’s inauguration, while Prof. Boaz Golany, Prof. Boaz Golany, vice president for External Relations and Resource Development, Prof. Wayne Kaplan, executive vice president for Research, Prof. Nahum Shimkin, dean of the Andrew and Erna Viterbi Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Prof. Dan Geiger, dean of the Computer Science Department and Prof. Carmel Domshlak, Dean of the William Davidson Faculty of Industrial Engineering and Management, represented the Technion.

Mayberry and Rao are in Israel as part of a delegation of senior executives from Intel, including interim CEO Robert Swan, visiting the multinational’s local headquarters in Haifa and holding a series of meetings, including one with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a statement from Intel said Monday.

Prof. Shie Mannor from the Technion Andrew and Erna Viterbi Faculty of Electrical Engineering will head the Center.

“As part of this collaboration with Intel, the company will support research projects of Technion faculty members engaged in computational learning and artificial intelligence together with Intel researchers. The research will cover a variety of areas, including natural language processing, deep learning, and hardware optimization for different learning algorithms,” he said.

According to Mannor, “The Technion is the leading university in Israel in the field of artificial intelligence and is one of the top ten universities in the world in the field. In 2018 the Technion ranked 7th in the CS Rankings: Computer Science Rankings.”

The Technion has about 20 faculty members whose main field of research is computational learning and another 40 researchers that are working related fields. Most of the researchers come from the Faculty of Computer Science, the Faculty of Electrical Engineering, and the Faculty of Industrial Engineering and Management and some of them are from other faculties such as Medicine and Biology, Mannor said.

“We are proud of the cooperation with the Technion, which will promote Israeli technology and Intel’s technological leadership in the field of artificial intelligence,” Intel Israel CEO Yaniv Garty said, “Intel is a leader in this field and the research center will help further advance AI innovation. I have no doubt that we will achieve breakthroughs that will lead to significant developments in the coming years. Intel has always maintained a close cooperation with Israeli academia, which has included many contributions, support of teaching programs, scholarships for outstanding students, joint research and more.”