Carnegie Mellon University — the birthplace of AI — unites research and education, to develop AI strategies that focus on pioneering safe AI technologies, integrating human-centered design in autonomous systems, and harnessing AI's potential for societal good.

Carnegie Mellon leaders and faculty joined AI innovators, researchers and industry experts at the 2025 AI Horizons event at Bakery Square in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The event focused on how to move AI from concept to real-world impact in critical fields like health care, manufacturing, defense, finance, robotics and more.

Opening Keynote

AI Horizon’s opening keynote, titled “Igniting the AI Deployment Era,” included contributions from Joanna Doven, AI Strike Team executive director and Carnegie Mellon alumna; Zico Kolter, head of CMU’s Machine Learning Department(opens in new window); and Devlin Robinson, a state senator in Pennsylvania.

"We're telling a story here," Doven said during the day’s introduction. "Pittsburgh is now the nation's most concentrated AI hub outside of Silicon Valley."

Kolter then took the stage to speak about the new age of rapid development and deployment of AI, and how research turns into real world impact. He used examples of CMU-based research, such as the autonomous vehicle designs that came from the DARPA Urban Challenge in 2007 and how the same team went on to develop Waymo.

"This is not the future. It's happening right now," he said.

Kolter then joined Andrew Moore, Lovelace CEO and former dean of CMU’s School of Computer Science(opens in new window), and Alison Snyder, a senior writer for Google DeepMind, for a fireside panel on the deployment of AI tools across society.

Art and AI Intersect: “The Endless Mile”

Carnegie Mellon University's College of Fine Arts(opens in new window) also had an established presence at AI Horizons.

CFA faculty members Johannes DeYoung(opens in new window) and Annie Hui-Hsin Hsieh(opens in new window) showcased their multimedia art project, “The Endless Mile(opens in new window),” an experimental animation which was projected onto a wall to respond to audio input of a musical composition by Hsieh. The stated goal of the piece is to complement the day's themes of exploring human-centered approaches to artificial intelligence. The project was previously shown at the LUMA Festival in Binghamton, New York.

Public-Private Powerhouse: Owning Pennsylvania’s AI Moment

Thursday’s final event focused on Pennsylvania’s role as a leader in AI deployment and the state’s role as a key energy source for future data centers. It featured a conversation between Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, BNY CEO Robin Vince and Westinghouse Interim CEO Dan Sumner, and moderated by CMU President Farnam Jahanian. 

The panel unpacked the role of AI in government efficiency, its impacts on regional workforces and the importance of public-private partnerships working in tandem with higher education to further innovation. 

AI’s Future is Physical

The second day of AI Horizons kicked off with a presentation by Martial Hebert(opens in new window), dean of Carnegie Mellon's School of Computer Science, on the history of robotics and computer vision, followed by a conversation with Skild AI co-founders and CMU faculty Abhinav Gupta(opens in new window) and Deepak Pathak(opens in new window) to discuss how AI is making its way into the physical world with robotics and mobility systems.

“We tend to lose track of the fact that the advances that we seek, and the unicorns (startups with valuations of over $1 billion) are the results of very long-term research and very long-term projects,” Hebert said. “Skild AI is the shining example of that, the culmination of that history.”

Pathak shared Skild AI’s efforts to develop a general-use brain for humanoid robots. 

“This model works on any robot, any task, one brain,” Pathak said.

He presented videos of robots putting dishes away, walking up steep hills, and walking up and down stairs holding boxes. "We can also do fun stuff," he said, showing a video of a robot performing a front flip over a low obstacle.

Gupta said Skild AI’s work reflects what Pittsburgh offers to AI innovation and deployment.

“In Pittsburgh, we don’t just make fancy stuff, we make things that work,” he said. “I feel Pittsburgh brings a huge amount of dense talent — especially CMU — into one place. We have people doing robotics, we have people doing machine learning. It makes you think much bigger. This is tangible.”

Discovery to Defense: AI and Biomanufacturing at the Frontline

As biotechnology converges with AI, researchers can accelerate the pace of discovery and create lifesaving therapies, such as precise medical treatments that can be tailored to specific individuals. 

Barbara Shinn-Cunningham(opens in new window), the Glen de Vries Dean of CMU’s Mellon College of Science, discussed these advances in a conversation alongside ElevateBio Chief Technology Officer Michael Paglia, BioForge Vice President of Engineering Brennan Sellner, National Security Commission on Emerging Biotechnology Senior Policy Adviser Steven Moss, and Pittsburgh Life Sciences Alliance President and CEO Megan Shaw.

“We’re generating so much data that we can’t analyze it by hand the way we used to,” said Shinn-Cunningham. “AI is being used in all sorts of ways. We’re using AI in chemistry to find good molecules that are good candidates for drugs. It’s used in every kind of science.” 

Health Care Reimagined: Addressing Data Challenges with AI

Later Friday morning, Chenyan Xiong(opens in new window), an associate professor in the Language Technologies Institute, joined several health care technology and business experts to provide a technical perspective on challenges and opportunities for AI in the health industry.

Xiong spoke alongside Reuben Daniel, president of AI at UPMC Health Plan, Deepan Kamaraj, director of analytics and informatics at UPMC Enterprises, and Avi Goldberg, a partner of GreatPoint Venture. The discussion covered a wide range of topics, from the possible challenges and benefits of regulation to the potential of AI to bolster effectiveness in drug discovery, telehealth and patient care.

“There are a bunch of unique challenges,” Xiong said during the discussion. “A lot of AI research on health is unfortunately constrained or driven by data.”

Among the use cases of AI, Xiong noted, is its potential to utilize all of the structured information created throughout the medical process as doctors work with patients. “It can make the process of putting all of the data together less painful,” he said.

Powering America’s Future: AI and Energy Storage for National Resilience

AI requires an enormous amount of energy and its rapidly increasing demands are straining the country’s aging power grid(opens in new window). 

To understand the energy challenges AI has created and how energy storage can offer solutions, CMU Vice President for Research Theresa Mayer(opens in new window) talked with EOS Energy Enterprises CEO Joe Mastrangelo and Engie North America Chief Renewables Officer and Senior Vice President Dave Carroll.

“As a country, we’re moving forward looking for ways to harvest abundant cost effective clean and resilient energy — that’s key,” Mayer said. “We need to make sure that we’re not driving up the cost for consumers. Not only do we need energy to power AI and manufacturing, we can also leverage AI as being very key to achieving these goals. We’ve heard over and over again, this is urgent. Our nation’s prosperity and national security depends on us winning the AI and energy race.”

Mastrangelo and Carroll both emphasized that while artificial intelligence demands considerable amounts of energy, AI is also needed to improve the energy grid.

“We now have computers that can analyze a huge amount of data at once and operate the energy grid much faster than humans,” Carroll said.

Entertainment Technology Takes Center Stage

Faculty and staff from CMU’s Entertainment Technology Center(opens in new window) (ETC), which is celebrating its 25th anniversary, demonstrated during AI Horizons how artificial intelligence is changing the world of interactive media.

Attendees visiting the ETC booth were able to interface with AI directly by picking thematic and stylistic prompts to instantly generate and play a pinball game.

John Balash(opens in new window), director of academic outreach, extension, and engagement at the ETC, encouraged passersby to use the system and gain hands-on familiarity with technology, and talked about the importance of embracing AI. Balash was joined by two ETC staff members on the unit’s outreach and engagement team, narrative designer Paige Branagan and mechanical engineer Chansocphentra Salcido(opens in new window), who both helped create the game.

"At AI Horizons, there are fascinating technologies, fascinating companies, fascinating problems and challenges. But we also have to consider the human component of it,” Balash said. “How do we leverage these technologies to become more human?"

On Friday afternoon, ETC Director Derek Ham(opens in new window) helped to answer this question by taking the stage for a breakout discussion with Karl Blischke, executive director of the PA Council on the Arts, and Jake Marsico, chief creative officer for creative technology company Deeplocal.

During the discussion, Ham talked about the importance of culture and the role it plays in creativity, and how that fits into discussions of AI’s role as a supplement to, rather than a replacement for, human creativity. Near the end of the session, Ham specifically addressed concerns around AI’s use in academic settings, and how educational institutions can still thrive by centering creativity and collaboration as a key factor in student success.

"There are several things that you can do by yourself, but it's that context of teamwork, and that's still how industry is run. That's still how we make products. That's still how companies are formed: in collaboration with other humans," Ham said. "That's the value of a graduate program right now."