MIT News | Massachusetts Institute of Technology - On Campus and Around the world

Writing for WBUR, MIT Profs. Christopher Knittel, Catherine Wolfram and UCLA Prof. Kimberly Clausing break down the cost of climate change for the average American household, which is about $900 each year. “Climate inaction isn’t just an environmental failure, it’s a sizable part of America’s affordability problem,” they write. “Recognizing this may finally make climate action something voters can rally behind.”

The Boston Symphony Orchestra will perform the world premiere of Prof. Tod Machover’s “already and not yet,” reports A.Z. Madonna for The Boston Globe. Madonna notes that Machover, “has a decades-long resume of experimenting with artificial intelligence technology in music-making, such as in the 1987 science fiction opera ‘VALIS.’” 

Prof. Sinan Aral joins CNBC’s “Squawk Box” to discuss the state of AI data center construction across the U.S. and the impact of new AI technologies on the power grid. “Data center and compute demand is so large and growing,” says Aral. He adds that hybrid models that “combine the benefit of connecting to the [power] grid with the benefit of an energy island model, where you have onsite storage of energy, you have battery and you have onsite generation to offload during peak times. The hybrid model is really good because it gets the best of both worlds.” 

MIT is exploring new pathways to build upon its entrepreneurial ecosystem, including creating additional support for startups and identifying new opportunities for successful translation and entrepreneurship, reports Greg Ryan for Bloomberg. “MIT has long had a reputation for fostering entrepreneurship: A 2015 report found that a quarter of alumni had founded their own companies, which together would have formed the world’s 10th-largest economy at the time,” explains Ryan. “Since then, MIT faculty and graduates have continued to develop new companies in technology, pharmaceuticals and other industries.” 

Yuly Fuentes-Medel of the MIT Climate Project speaks with GBH Boston Public Radio hosts Jim Braude and Margery Eagan about her work focused on improving sustainability in the footwear industry, and making running shoes more eco-friendly. 

A new working paper by researchers from MIT FutureTech finds that “AI’s march through the labor market looks far less like a sudden catastrophe and far more like a slow, rising flood — serious and accelerating, but not the overnight apocalypse that has dominated headlines and executive anxiety for the past two years,” writes Nick Lichtenberg for Fortune. “Rather than arriving in crashing waves that transform a certain set of tasks at a time,” the researchers write, “progress typically resembles a rising tide, with widespread gains across many tasks simultaneously.”

Two new studies from researchers at MIT and elsewhere have described “the machine-learning algorithms they developed to screen bacterial genomes and identify proteins that are involved in protecting the microorganisms against viral invaders,” reports Miryam Naddaf for Nature. “There’s a hope that maybe there’s a next generation of molecular tools that would come from some of these new systems,” says Prof. Michael Laub. 

Prof. Julien de Wit speaks with Dan Rea from WBZ’s Nightside News about his team’s work developing new ways to address threats posted by small asteroids to our critical space infrastructure. “We are developing the technology here at MIT to find [asteroids] and then track them and understand if we should be caring about them,” de Wit explains. 

A new laser communication system developed by a team from MIT’s Lincoln Laboratory is aboard NASA’s Artemis II mission to the moon, reports Nick Stoico and Hannah Goeke for The Boston Globe. “It’s a culmination of a huge effort by a lot of people,” says Lincoln Lab Group Leader Bryan Robinson. “We’ve been waiting until now to get it off the ground.”

Prof. David Autor speaks with The Guardian reporter Julia Scott about the growing appeal of hands-on jobs for young workers. These jobs “are an area where there’s tremendous specialized knowledge,” says Autor.  “It’s often acquired in the field. And it’s not easily automatable because it requires lots and lots of judgment, combined with a level of dexterity and adaptability in an ever-changing environment. That’s very, very challenging for robotics.” 

According to the 2026 QS World University Rankings, MIT has been earned a No. 1 global ranking in 12 subject areas, including chemical engineering; chemistry; civil and structural engineering; computer science and information systems; data science and artificial intelligence; electrical and electronic engineering; engineering and technology; linguistics; materials science; mechanical, aeronautical, and manufacturing engineering; mathematics; and physics and astronomy, reports Michael T. Nietzel for Forbes.