News | Artificial Intelligence (AI) Undergraduate Program

How MLR@Penn Supports Student AI Researchers

Last year, researchers published over 50,000 papers on machine learning — a nearly 50% jump from the previous year. “Figuring out what’s worth reading is hard,” says Alok Shah (CIS’26, ESE’26, C’26), president of Machine Learning Research @ Penn (MLR@Penn), a club that helps students stay on top of fast-moving developments in AI.

Penn Engineers First to Train AI at Lightspeed

Penn Engineers have developed the first programmable chip that can train nonlinear neural networks using light — a breakthrough that could dramatically speed up AI training, reduce energy use and even pave the way for fully light-powered computers.

Zixuan Yi: A ‘Question-Driven’ Approach to Improving AI and Machine Learning

Zixuan Yi of the PRECISE Center has developed new AI and ML techniques to make databases more efficient.

The ASSET Center Advances Trustworthy AI with Support from AWS

Amazon Web Services (AWS) has generously provided $840,000 in funding this year to support the next generation of AI researchers. The funding is intended to help the 12 selected Ph.D. students push the boundaries of knowledge in AI safety, robustness and interpretability, among other key areas.

AI Across Disciplines event highlights the power of ‘breadth and connectivity’ at universities

At a cross-disciplinary gathering at Amy Gutmann Hall, the Penn community celebrated the launch of the Penn AI Initiative with a panel discussing AI research at Penn—and writ large.

AI Month at Penn

From April 1 to May 1, Penn Engineering will host leading experts, insightful discussions, and interactive workshops exploring on the impact of artificial intelligence on society.

Evaluating Large Language Models for Cyberbullying Behavior

In the Brachio Lab, doctoral students at Penn Engineering probe AI models for signs of cyberbullying capabilities. This emerging problem with the rise of AI may pose challenges in areas like business, education, and public health.

Combining AI and Art-making for Youth Well-being

After gaining experience as a qualitative researcher in public health, Eileen Feng mused about how she might take that knowledge and apply it to product design. She sought out a program soon after completing a master’s program in public health, finding her fit with the Integrated Product Design master’s program, a joint program between the School of Engineering and Applied Science, the Wharton School, and the Weitzman School of Design.

César de la Fuente, Jason Altschuler Named Sloan Research Fellows

The University of Pennsylvania’s Jason Altschuler, César de la Fuente, Liang Wu, and Anderson Ye Zhang have each been selected to receive a 2025 Sloan Research Fellowship, which recognizes early-career scientists in North America.

Violent Language in Films Has Increased Since the 1970s: A New Study

Violent entertainment has made it into the public discourse due to rising concerns about the graphic nature of highly popular video game franchises including Grand Theft Auto (GTA) and Call of Duty. But what about violence in films which are enjoyed by a much larger and more diverse audience?

Is Moore’s Law Really Dead?

In 1965, Gordon Moore defined a relationship between cadence and cost for computing innovation that came to be known as “Moore’s Law.” This rule both described and inspired the exponential growth that built the Information Age.

Revolutionizing Data Centers: Penn Engineers’ Breakthrough in Photonic Switching

Every second, terabytes of data — the equivalent of downloading thousands upon thousands of movies at once — travel around the world as light in fiber-optic cables, like so many cars packed onto a super-fast highway. When that information reaches data centers, it needs a switching system, just as cars need traffic lights, to exit the highway in an orderly fashion.

George Pappas and Nikolai Matni Receive 2024 IEEE Control Systems Society Best Paper Awards

George Pappas, UPS Foundation Professor of Transportation in Electrical and Systems Engineering (ESE) and Associate Dean for Research for Penn Engineering, and Nikolai Matni, Assistant Professor in ESE, have been recognized with awards from the Control Systems Society (CSS) of the IEEE honoring their publications in IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control and IEEE Transactions on Control of Network Systems, respectively.

Unlocking Multi-Core Potential: Robert Gifford’s Breakthroughs in Real-Time System Safety

From pacemakers to autonomous vehicles, Robert Gifford's innovations in real-time systems are paving the way for safer, more efficient multi-core computing

Giving Robots Superhuman Vision Using Radio Signals

PanoRadar gives robots superhuman vision by transforming simple radio waves into detailed, 3D views of the environment.