Academic center · Science policy · Science and Engineering Complex (SEC), Allston · Est. 2021
The Harvard Kempner Institute for the Study of Natural and Artificial Intelligence is a Harvard-wide, interfaculty academic initiative focused on uncovering the foundations of intelligence in both biological and artificial systems, and then using those insights to advance technology for human benefit. The institute is led by faculty co-directors Sham Kakade and Bernardo Sabatini, with Elise Porter serving as Executive Director.
It operates as an interdisciplinary community connecting research across Harvard while providing shared educational and computational infrastructure for investigators and trainees. A distinguishing aspect of the Kempner Institute is its dedicated AI supercomputing cluster (the “Kempner AI Cluster”), which is positioned as one of the largest academic AI clusters in the world and is used for cutting-edge research across machine learning and natural-intelligence-aligned domains. The institute also supports internal research access and early-stage projects through its Kempner Institute Accelerator Awards program, which provides in-kind compute resources to Harvard faculty projects that align with the institute’s mission. Strategically, the Kempner Institute is now scaling both its compute capacity and its training pipeline: it recruits cohorts of graduate fellows and postdoctoral research fellows, and it runs undergraduate research programs (including KRANIUM and KURE) to create structured pathways into intelligence research. Recent institute updates highlight both growth in compute capability (including a major cluster expansion in 2026) and ongoing research outputs spanning AI foundations, multi-agent coordination, AI for neuroscience, and AI-supported scientific modeling.
As Kempner Institute Research Fellows Wilka Carvalho, T. Anderson (Andy) Keller, and Gabriel Poesia conclude their fellowships this month, the Institute bids farewell to three scholars whose work has helped […]
Building an Economy of AI Minds - Kempner InstituteMany artificial intelligence systems work like solitary assistants. A human user gives an AI model a problem, and the model plans, reasons, and produces an answer on its own. But […]
A Smartphone Navigation App for People with Blindness and Low Vision - Kempner InstituteFor the Study of Natural & Artificial Intelligence at Harvard University
AI Framework Decodes How Brain Regions Talk to One Another - Kempner InstituteFor the Study of Natural & Artificial Intelligence at Harvard University
Kempner Institute Announces Newest Accelerator Award Recipients - Kempner InstituteThe Kempner Institute for the Study of Natural and Artificial Intelligence at Harvard University is pleased to announce the recipients of the 2026 Kempner Institute Accelerator Awards, a grant program […]
Kempner Institute Announces Recipients of 2026 Graduate Fellowships - Kempner InstituteCambridge, MA — The Kempner Institute for the Study of Natural and Artificial Intelligence today announced the names of 16 students chosen as the incoming 2026 cohort of Kempner graduate […]
Nada Amin, Sitan Chen Appointed Kempner Institute Associate Faculty Members - Kempner InstituteCAMBRIDGE, MA — The Kempner Institute for the Study of Natural and Artificial Intelligence at Harvard is pleased to announce the appointment of Nada Amin and Sitan Chen as associate […]
An AI-Powered Control System for Robots with Legs - Kempner InstituteFor the Study of Natural & Artificial Intelligence at Harvard University
Kempner Institute Co-Director’s ICML Plenary Showcases Broad Science-of-Pretraining Effort - Kempner InstituteAllston, MA— How much can a simplified quadratic model actually reveal about large-scale deep-learning optimization behavior in the pretraining of large language models (LLMs)? Quite a lot, says Kempner Institute […]
Kempner Institute Researchers Receive ICML 2026 Outstanding Paper Honorable Mention - Kempner InstituteA paper by Kempner Institute researchers has received an Outstanding Paper Honorable Mention at ICML 2026, the 43rd International Conference on Machine Learning, held July 6–11, 2026, in Seoul, South […]
Undergraduates On The Frontier Of Intelligence ResearchKempner Institute Celebrates Research Fellows Naomi Saphra and Alex Damian as They Depart for Faculty Roles - Kempner InstituteAllston, MA — Research Fellows Naomi Saphra and Alex Damian conclude their fellowships at the Kempner today and will soon begin new faculty appointments at Boston University and MIT, respectively. […]
Kempner Institute researchers describe “Economy of Minds,” an artificial marketplace in which groups of AI agents learn to coordinate using market-like bidding and reward rules across multiple tasks, including areas like mathematics, finance, and scientific research.
A Smartphone Navigation App for People with Blindness and Low VisionKempner Institute research highlights a smartphone navigation app aimed at supporting people with blindness or low vision using AI and sensor-based guidance.
AI Framework Decodes How Brain Regions Talk to One AnotherAn institute news item describes an AI framework intended to decode interactions between brain regions.
Kempner Institute Announces Newest Accelerator Award RecipientsThe institute announced recipients of the 2026 Kempner Institute Accelerator Awards, a program providing in-kind compute support for advanced computational projects aligned with the institute’s intelligence-focused mission.
Kempner Institute Announces Recipients of 2026 Graduate FellowshipsThe institute announced 16 students as the incoming 2026 cohort of Kempner graduate fellows across multiple Harvard PhD programs.
Nada Amin, Sitan Chen Appointed Kempner Institute Associate Faculty MembersThe institute announced appointments of Nada Amin and Sitan Chen as Kempner Institute associate faculty members.