Who's who · Research institutes
MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory
MIT's largest research lab, covering computer science and AI, formed in 2003
At a glance
- Founded
- July 2003
- Based in
- Cambridge, United States
- People
- Daniela Rus, Director; Armando Solar-Lezama, Associate director and chief operating officer; Daniel Jackson, Associate director
- Known for
- Project MAC, RSA encryption, Spin-out companies
- Funding
- Part of MIT (non-profit university)
- Parent
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology
- Research groups
- More than 60
- Website
- https://www.csail.mit.edu
The MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) is the largest research laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. It covers almost every area of computing, from theory and systems to robotics, human-computer interaction and AI, organised into eight communities of research and more than sixty research groups and centres.
CSAIL was formed on 1 July 2003 by merging MIT's Laboratory for Computer Science and its Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, both descendants of Project MAC, founded in 1963. The AI Lab itself dates from 1959. Work by CSAIL and its predecessors contributed to time-sharing, RSA encryption, the World Wide Web and the technology behind ARPANET and the internet.
Hundreds of companies have spun out of the lab, including Akamai, Dropbox, Boston Dynamics and iRobot. Daniela Rus, a roboticist, has directed CSAIL since 2012. The lab is housed in the Stata Center in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Sources
- MIT CSAIL, About, 2026-10-02
- MIT CSAIL, Leadership, 2026-10-02
- MIT CSAIL, CSAIL 20/60 Timeline, 2026-10-02
- MIT News, Daniela Rus named CSAIL director, 2012-05-22
Facts last checked 2026-10-02