School of Engineering

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.”

The Economist reports on the growing popularity of ingestible sensors, including work at MIT where researchers are using the devices to “sense internal conditions and act on what they find.”  The MIT team “received $66m from ARPA-H, a federal grant system that pushes high-risk, transformative health-care technology, to develop ingestible devices for the oral delivery of mRNA treatments.” 

Researchers at MIT have developed a new online tool called the “AI Labor Exposure Map,” which breaks down different job tasks by those that can be performed by AI, and those that cannot. The team found that, “[i]n many cases, the human-centric parts of a job are still essential,” reports Hiawatha Bray for The Boston Globe. “Instead of laying off workers, an employer could use the research to identify tasks that could be automated, so that the workers can be reassigned to handle only the uniquely human tasks.” 

During a live interview in the GBH studios with Curiosity Desk host Edgar B. Herwick III, Research Scientist AJ Perez shares his work developing a new method to reuse recycled plastic to 3D print construction-grade materials for home building, which could help reduce home construction costs. “This all started with the idea of trying to build the roughly one billion homes the world needs,” says Perez. 

MIT researchers have developed a new method for precisely moving columns of individual atoms within a material, which could give rise to exotic quantum properties and shed light on quantum behavior, reports Tim Wogan for Physics World. “I’m excited because of the scalability of this that allows us to look at the interactions between the defects rather than just creating a defect itself,” explains Prof. Frances Ross. 

Prof. William Oliver speaks with Scientific American reporter Adam Becker about the future of quantum computing. “Quantum computing is real, it’s happening, and it’s going to take time,” Oliver says. “It’s going to take engineering, and there’s still science to do as well. It’s not all buttoned up.” He adds that, in the future, we will be using quantum computers "to better understand, from a scientific standpoint, the world around us.”

In an effort to defend medical devices against quantum attacks, MIT researchers have engineered an ultra-efficient microchip that can protect wireless biomedical devices, such as insulin pumps and pacemakers, reports Katie Hunt for CNN. The microchip, which is around the size of an extremely fine needle tip, “includes built-in protection needed for post-quantum cybersecurity. The device achieved between 20 and 60 times higher energy efficiency than other post-quantum security techniques.”

Prof. Asu Ozdaglar, head of EECS and deputy dean of academics for the MIT Schwarzman College of Computing, speaks with Kai Ryssdal of Marketplace about how MIT is preparing its students for the era of AI by teaching foundational skills that will enable them to find jobs in a variety of different sectors. The new Artificial Intelligence + Decision Making major (AI+D) teaches students about the “foundations of how to use this intelligence for enhancing human experience, human work, human education, all of those domains, so that no matter how the technology changes, these students can adapt their skills to the new set of tools and developments.”

New York Times reporter Melissa Kirsch spotlights a study by MIT scientists that explores how the “sound of rain causes some seeds to germinate faster.”

Prof. Regina Barzilay speaks with WBUR’s Priyanka Dayal McCluskey about her work developing an AI risk detection tool that can analyze mammogram images and help predict risk of breast cancer before it happens or spreads. Barzilay, who describes the tool as a hi-tech weather forecast for breast health, notes that: “We really need to have tools that can help, rather than just staring at an image and trying to guess.” 

Sybil, a new AI tool developed by researchers from MIT and Mass General Brigham Cancer Institute, “analyzes a single CT scan and generates a risk score predicting the likelihood of developing lung cancer over a period of up to six years,” reports Ivan Rodriguez for WCVB-TV. “In 2023, researchers reported that Sybil achieved an accuracy rate of 86% to 94% in distinguishing high-risk patients from low-risk patients within a year.”