Set to take place on Tuesday, December 5, this initiative aims to revolutionize the landscape of AI innovation.

The formation of the AI Alliance is spearheaded by IBM and Meta, joined by a consortium of leading organizations spanning industry, startups, academia, research, and government. This coalition is dedicated to supporting open innovation and open science in AI, recognizing the transformative potential of AI advancements and committing to fostering transparent innovation.

In an ever-evolving technological landscape, AI promises to enhance various aspects of our lives. The AI Alliance intends to harness these advancements responsibly, prioritizing safety, diversity, economic opportunities, and societal benefits. Collaboration and information sharing are paramount to catalyze innovation, mitigate risks, and ensure that AI products align with global needs.

President Asher Cohen of Hebrew University remarked: “Joining the AI Alliance marks a pivotal moment for Hebrew University, where collaboration meets innovation. We're thrilled to be part of this coalition driving the future of AI, fostering open technologies, nurturing talent, and championing ethical, trusted AI practices. Together, we'll forge pathways for global education, build robust frameworks, and advocate for policies that nurture a vibrant, open AI ecosystem. This alliance is a beacon illuminating our commitment to shaping a responsible, inclusive future powered by the boundless possibilities of artificial intelligence.”

The AI Alliance is dedicated to several pivotal goals, including creating benchmarks, evaluation standards, and tools essential for responsible AI deployment. By uniting a diverse coalition of supporters, the Alliance aims to drive forward responsible AI development while prioritizing safety, ethics, and governance in its deployment. Emphasizing the maximization of AI benefits across science, business, and society, the Alliance promotes open innovation that serves the greater good, underscoring responsibility and inclusivity.

Its overarching mission is to cultivate an open community that empowers developers and researchers to accelerate responsible AI innovation, ensuring robust scientific rigor and trustworthiness in the field. The Alliance plans to undertake various projects, including deploying tools for responsible AI development, establishing evaluation standards, supporting open foundation models, advancing AI hardware accelerators, global AI skills building, educational initiatives, and events showcasing responsible AI use cases.

Open innovation in AI democratizes access to groundbreaking advancements, harnesses global innovative talent, ensures accountability, fosters transparency, and enables robust testing and validation. Hebrew University is committed to contributing to this transformative initiative, promoting open innovation that benefits both technology providers and consumers.

Published: December 5, 2023

His attention turned to sustainable farming and precision agriculture. “Everyone wants to work in Silicon Valley,” he reflects. “But wheat and corn could be much more important, in the grand scheme of things.”

The natural direction to turn was the Hebrew University’s Robert H. Smith Faculty of Agriculture, Food, and Environment.

“Hebrew University is a powerhouse in both AI and agriculture,” says Prof. Gavish. “It makes perfect sense to combine these two fields and develop ways to feed future generations—doing more with less.” He connected with two plant scientists: Prof. Menachem Moshelion, an expert in plant physiology, and Dr. Ittai Herrmann, an expert in plant remote sensing.

“We built ISURF the Israeli way: with a little bit of chutzpa, a lot of entrepreneurial spirit, and an ambitious technological vision stretching the limit of knowledge and budget.”

A project was started in Singapore, a tiny island city-state similar Israel: it is small, lacking in natural resources, and has an innovation-based economy. But unlike Israel, Singapore imports nearly its entire food supply, and has very little agricultural land. This is cause for concern in the face of possible food shortages in the coming decades. To meet this challenge, Singapore is investing significantly in aquaculture, urban agriculture, and alternative proteins – with the goal of producing 30% of their food by 2030.

The Singaporean research authority CREATE developed strategic partnerships with select institutions worldwide, including the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. A joint Israel-Singapore team with colleagues in both countries–Hebrew University in Israel and NTU in Singapore–applied for a highly competitive research grant from CREATE. “It was a Hail Mary,” says Prof. Gavish. “To the best of our knowledge, nothing like our proposed research facility existed anywhere in the world.”

the team is now building Israel-Singapore URban Farm (ISURF), a research facility in Singapore that conducts experiments in real-world tropical urban farm conditions, monitoring and measuring the crops as they grow in the Singaporean climate. “This is very exciting”, says Prof. Gavish. The cutting edge experiments we will run in ISURF could be very meaningful for tropical urban food production.

Published: July 26, 2023