Innovation and Entrepreneurship (I&E)

Reporting from MIT, GBH’s Kirk Carapezza highlights how MIT is launching a “major effort to advance quantum computing, with a state investment of $25 million to help build a new research facility in Cambridge.” Said President Sally Kornbluth: “Everything you can think of that uses classical computing now, think about quantum speeding it up, making it more efficient. We think about the AI revolution and the expenses of AI and data centers. This is going to be impacted by a whole new different way of computing.”

President Sally Kornbluth and Governor Maura Healey announced the establishment of a new quantum hub at MIT, called the Quantum Systems Laboratory, which is aimed at enabling scientists to undertake impactful work applying quantum research across practical domains, including life sciences and national defense, reports Aaron Pressman for The Boston Globe. “Greater Boston has the greatest concentration of quantum talent anywhere in the world,” said Kornbluth. “It has been clear to us for some time that if we could magnify all of that talent with the right facilities and shared quantum toolbox, we could establish Massachusetts as a national hub for quantum innovation.”

To help establish Massachusetts and the nation as a quantum leader, President Sally Kornbluth and Governor Maura Healey announced plans for a new share-used quantum research facility at MIT, writes Axios reporter Steph Solis. The Quantum Systems Laboratory would “host teams focused on using quantum mechanics for life sciences and defense research, but what would set the MIT project apart from existing labs is its ability to power direct communication among multiple quantum computers,” Solis explains. 

Thanks in part to a $25 investment from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, MIT plans to open the Quantum Systems Laboratory, which will “provide quantum experts from across Massachusetts access to quantum hardware and specialized equipment,” reports Lucia Maffei for the Boston Business Journal. "This is good news for MIT, good news for Massachusetts and, frankly, good news for the world," said Governor Maura Healey. "This is really setting the stage to have cutting-edge quantum computers be able to operate in that building," said President Sally Kornbluth. "There will be many people throughout Massachusetts who come to use this facility. It's really a hub to make Massachusetts a quantum center.” 

State House News Service reporter Katie Castellani writes that President Sally Kornbluth and Governor Maura Healey announced a new shared-use quantum facility at MIT, the Quantum Systems Laboratory (QSL), aimed at providing scientists the opportunity to apply quantum research across various sectors, including defense and the life sciences. The QSL will “bring quantum computers together with quantum sensors and peripherals through physical channels that transfer information,” Castellani explains. 

MIT engineers have developed a new low-temperature process for extracting battery-grade lithium from hard rock, while also reducing waste, reports Gayoung Lee for Gizmodo. “Mining is essential to technology and therefore to society, yet it is perceived negatively by much of the public as a destructive, polluting industry, in some cases with good reason,” explains Prof. Yet-Ming Chiang. “We hope to help change that perception by showing that there are cleaner, more sustainable ways to do it.”

Writing for The Boston Globe, President Sally Kornbluth emphasizes the importance of investment in discovery science, what she calls “curiosity on a mission." Kornbluth notes: “When someone we love needs therapies that could have emerged but didn’t or when other countries now investing in science can launch new science-based industries or run their societies on vast resources of fusion energy or reap the benefits of quantum computing power or advanced medical breakthroughs, America will wish it sustained its leadership in scientific research here and now.”

7 News reporter Polikseni Manxhari spotlights Erin Dawicki Sloan Fellow MBA ’24 and her work developing LymeAlert, an at-home kit that can test ticks for Lyme disease. “We really see this as a community-based healthcare initiative where we can all contribute significant information and hopefully figure out how to stop these little buggers in their tracks,” says Dawicki. 

Writing for MassLive, Scott Kirsner highlights Gander Robotics, a startup co-founded by Sloan graduate student Michael Autery, that is “developing a torpedo-like device that is light enough to be tossed over the side of a ship — and designed to find a person in the water.” Autery, who served 15 years in the U.S. Navy, first pitched the idea for an “autonomous rescue swimmer” as part of an MIT entrepreneurship competition and notes: “if I had the same idea in a different place at the same time, I’m not sure it would’ve played out the same way. Cambridge is this very rich ecosystem for entrepreneurship.”

Profs. Elisabeth Reynolds and Simon Johnson joined Tom Keene and Paul Sweeney on Bloomberg Surveillance to discuss their new book, "Priority Technologies: Ensuring U.S. Security and Shared Prosperity," which highlights six key areas where advances in technology can drive the U.S. economy and support national security. “Quantum is the next frontier and opens up billions of dollars of opportunity,” says Reynolds. “Not just for defense and encryption issues, but also across all sorts of applications in financial services and biopharma.” 

President Emeritus L. Rafael Reif joins Rob Schmitz of NPR’s All Things Considered about how the U.S. can regain its edge as the global leader in science and innovation. Reif makes the case for investing in basic research in the country, and finding “a way so that the innovative ideas coming out of our labs don't end up in another country like China, that we develop them here by giving them a longer runway for them to materialize and make an impact.”

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.” 

Luana Lopes Lara '18 and Tarek Mansour '18, MNG '19, co-founders of prediction market firm Kalshi, have been named to the Forbes World’s Youngest Billionaires list, reports Simone Melvin for Forbes.

Prof. Robert Langer, Prof. Giovanni Traverso and former postdoctoral fellow Thomas von Erlach founded Vivtex, a biotechnology startup that has “created a high-tech system called a ‘GI tract on a chip’ that uses robotics and AI to test how drugs move through the human digestive system,” reports Beth Treffeisen for Boston.com. “The technology allows Vivtex to quickly test thousands of drug formulations and predict how they will be absorbed in people, much more accurately than traditional lab methods.” 

Profs. Robert Langer, Giovanni Traverso and former postdoctoral fellow Thomas von Erlach have founded Vivtex, a biotechnology startup specializing in “oral alternatives to drugs administered by injections,” reports Jonathan Satlzman for The Boston Globe. Vivtex, now working in collaboration with Novo Nordisk, is looking to develop a new class of “pills to treat obesity and diabetes,” explains Saltzman.