From artificial intelligence to next-generation microelectronics, engineers and computer scientists are helping develop technologies that will shape how we live, work and connect in the decades ahead. Long before ChatGPT became a household name, visiting scholar and Nobel Prize–winning AI pioneer Geoffrey Hinton collaborated with UC San Diego researchers to develop today’s neural networks. Among those collaborators was the late Jeff Elman, former dean of the School of Social Sciences, whose work on language, learning and cognition helped lay the foundation for large language models that now power generative AI chatbots.
The campus has also helped shape the digital infrastructure that connects the world. Internet pioneer Hans-Werner Braun, later a leader at the San Diego Supercomputer Center, played a key role in the development of the National Science Foundation Network (NSFNET) — the high-speed academic research network that became the backbone of the modern internet. More recently, UC San Diego has helped strengthen domestic semiconductor innovation through the Department of Defense-backed Microelectronics Commons, advancing new chip technologies for applications ranging from autonomous vehicles to aerospace.
Those breakthroughs don’t stay in the laboratory. Through one of the nation’s most active innovation ecosystems, the campus has launched more than 1,000 startups and executed more than 2,300 licensing agreements, helping move innovations from the lab into the marketplace and fueling economic growth and job creation.
7. Our research is helping communities prepare for disasters