UB has joined AI Alliance, a newly formed international community of organizations dedicated to promoting open, safe and responsible artificial intelligence.

IBM and Meta — in collaboration with more than 50 members representing academia, startups, enterprises and scientific organizations — launched the initiative last December. AI Alliance announced an additional 28 members, including UB, earlier this month.

Jinjun Xiong, director of UB’s Institute for Artificial Intelligence and Data Science, says the alliance’s goals match those of UB, which is focused on harnessing AI for the betterment of society.

“The recent resurgent interest in AI is a clear demonstration of the power of open research and the close collaboration between industry and academia,” Xiong says. “UB is proud to be part of the AI Alliance as a founding member to achieve its noble goals of democratizing the access of AI through open innovation, and to ensure the advancement of AI will benefit everyone in our society in a safe, responsible and equitable way.”

In its Dec. 5 announcement, the alliance stated that it “is focused on fostering an open community and enabling developers and researchers to accelerate responsible innovation in AI while ensuring scientific rigor, trust, safety, security, diversity and economic competitiveness.”

It continued: “By bringing together leading developers, scientists, academic institutions, companies and other innovators, we will pool resources and knowledge to address safety concerns while providing a platform for sharing and developing solutions that fit the needs of researchers, developers and adopters around the world.”

Members include Yale University, Dell Technologies, Dartmouth University, Oracle, NASA, Simons Foundation, the University of Texas at Austin, Sony Group and the National Science Foundation, among others.