Cornell AI News
Cornell is spearheading the development and refinement of AI through extensive interdisciplinary collaborations.
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AI Innovation Lab Demo Day Features University Projects
After brief opening remarks by Chief Global Information Officer (CIO) Curt Cole and by CIO for Cornell’s Ithaca campus and Cornell Tech Ben Maddox, eight projects from the Fall 2025 cohort of the university’s AI Innovation Lab were presented to in-person and Zoom audience members. Among the participants gathered in Bill and Melinda Gates Hall were three co-chairs of the Generative AI Plenary Council at Cornell: Vice Provost for Academic Innovation Steve Jackson, Vice President for Research and Innovation Krystyn Van Vliet, and Provost Kavita Bala.
Cornell team wins $50K in AI puzzle-solving challenge contest
A team from Cornell led by Kevin Ellis, assistant professor of computer science in the Cornell Ann S. Bowers College of Computing and Information Science, has developed a set of AI models that together, solve about 56% of the problems – scoring within 4 percentage points of the average human. Their paper, “Combining Induction and Transduction for Abstract Reasoning,” received a first-place-paper award at the 2024 ARC Prize competition. Lead authors on the paper were Wen-Ding Li, a doctoral student in the field of computer science, and Keya Hu, a visiting undergraduate student in Ellis’ group.
AI, quantum drive discovery of peptides for microplastic cleanup
A research team led by Cornell has demonstrated how quantum computing and artificial intelligence can be used to design new peptides capable of capturing microplastics that pose serious risks to ecosystems and human health.
How Academe Can Compete in the AI Arms Race by Kavita Bala
We are living in the most consequential decade in artificial intelligence’s history. We don’t know exactly what the future will look like, and we don’t know exactly what innovations it will bring, but we know one thing for certain: AI will be shaped by the people who have access to the most computing power and data.
Mice use their tongues to ‘see’ tactile targets
Cornell scientists have identified the neural pathway mice use to direct the tongue to tactile targets: the superior colliculus, the same brain region that primates – including humans – use to direct their gaze to visual targets. It’s likely that humans use the same neural pathways for touch-guided tongue control.
Pupil size in sleep reveals how memories are sorted and preserved
By studying mice equipped with brain electrodes and tiny eye-tracking cameras, Cornell researchers determined that new memories are being replayed and consolidated when the pupil is contracted during a substage of non-REM sleep.
New device’s radio waves reveal lead contamination in soil
A Cornell Tech-led research group is in the early stages of developing a portable, inexpensive device that uses radio frequency signals and machine learning for another important job: measuring lead contamination levels in soil.
In American fiction, it’s a small world after all
Despite being unbound by space and time, fictional protagonists in American literature travel fewer miles than their nonfiction counterparts, according to a Cornell-led research team that used artificial intelligence to analyze nearly 13,500 books from the last 230 years.