[altotrees]

This is super interesting. I know there is much heated discussion here on HN about IBM in terms of the Watson project and some of the claims made vs. reality etc. I am pretty far removed from the trajectory of IBM's AI research, but can only figure a joint effort with MIT will bolster their reputation by association if nothing else.

Just finished reading about Facebook and Microsoft launching a joint AI effort not five minutes ago. To those enmeshed in or working in AI research: are these joint efforts a response to Tensorflow and Google?

[et2o]

My cynical take: For a company like IBM it doesn't take a lot of money to sponsor an institute. It's likely a marketing effort. They've seen all of the bad press.

[mathattack]

Indeed. $24 million a year is pocket change compared to the advertising budget of Watson. Additionally, if it nets them a little academic credibility and a few MIT student grads per year, all the better.

[Eridrus]

I think the Facebook + Microsoft thing is definitely a response to TensorFlow. Google seems to be positioning Keras as the portability layer above frameworks and frameworks are implementing it too.

This seems more straightforward in that IBM has money and MIT has a good reputation and also a lot of smart folks that they may be able to hire.