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About One-U RAI

Mission

Realize a transdisciplinary ecosystem that catalyzes and nurtures responsible innovation, translation, application, and study of the function, use, and impacts of artificial intelligence to address scientific and societal grand challenges.

Background

The 2023-launched $100 million One-U Responsible Artificial Intelligence Initiative (One-U RAI) is led by the University of Utah Scientific Computing and Imaging (SCI) Institute as part of a concerted effort to conduct research at the U that improves the lives of Utah’s 3.4 million residents. One-U RAI leaders envision a reality where AI is responsibly leveraged to address critical local, regional, and global challenges and benefit humanity.

The initiative recognizes the essential building blocks of AI trustworthiness, as defined by the National Institute of Standards and Technology:

  • Validity and Reliability
  • Safety
  • Security and Resiliency
  • Accountability and Transparency
  • Explainability and Interpretability
  • Privacy
  • Fairness with Mitigation of Harmful Bias

AI is a transformative technology driving innovations, enabling discoveries, and spurring economic growth, and it's impacting everything from routine daily tasks and services to societal-level grand challenges. AI can also have negative social, environmental, and even economic consequences. To realize the positive and transformative potential of AI, it is imperative to advance AI and its applications responsibly, i.e., in a way that achieves societal good while also protecting privacy, civil rights, and civil liberties, and promotes principles of fairness, accountability, and transparency.

One-U RAI aims to catalyze transdisciplinary excellence in responsible AI at the U by bringing together the use-inspired/applied AI research and technological expertise, advanced cyberinfrastructure, and translational workforce needed to position the U as a regional and national leader.

Coordination & Management

The initiative exists in coordination with other AI efforts at the U. It includes a university-wide executive committee and working groups and a dedicated program office housed at SCI. It's also guided by external and internal advisory committees.

Learn More about AI Across the U

About One-U

One-U programs provide opportunities for students, staff, and faculty to collaborate on innovative, groundbreaking, interdisciplinary work to engage the pressing questions of our time.
Learn More about One-U Initiatives

Approach

Bridge Research Boundaries
Bridge Research Boundaries
Spark and sustain large multidisciplinary collaborations.
Complement Existing Efforts
Complement Existing Efforts
Harness strengths to focus on novel, transdisciplinary research and training.
Pioneer Real-World Solutions
Pioneer Real-World Solutions
Prioritize projects with regional impact and beyond to distinguish the U.

Key Components

Attract Talent & Expertise
Attract Talent & Expertise
Host leading researchers from across the globe for up to one year, offer three-year fellowships to new and existing faculty, and hire clusters of experts—from senior faculty to research staff and students—focused on grand challenges.
Expand Cyberinfrastructure
Expand Cyberinfrastructure
Build an advanced, widely accessible cyberinfrastructure of computational resources, data, testbeds, algorithms, software, services, networks, and user training and expertise, and use it to establish ethical AI guardrails.
Engage with Industry & Community
Engage with Industry & Community
Collaborate with businesses, other universities, and government; hold public events to foster ideas and partnerships; and connect students with scholarships, internships, and jobs.

A Legacy of Impact

“From being the fourth node of the original internet to performing the world’s first artificial heart transplant, we hope to continue the U’s pioneering legacy by investing to become a national leader in responsible artificial intelligence. This research has the potential to unlock solutions to issues that affect Utah, the nation, and the world.”

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—University of Utah President Taylor Randall

Read the One-U RAI Announcement