It isn’t easy for a robot to find its way out of a maze. Picture these machines trying to traverse a kid’s playroom to reach the kitchen, with miscellaneous toys scattered across the floor and furniture blocking some potential paths. This messy labyrinth requires the robot to calculate the most optimal journey to its destination, without crashing into any obstacles. What is the bot to do?

For more than 60 years, MIT has been an undisputed pioneer in developing computing technologies that have transformed the world. The Institute’s largest research lab, the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL), has had a hand in everything from time-sharing and computer graphics to data encryption and early versions of the Internet. 

With a new, user-friendly interface, researchers can quickly design many cellular metamaterial structures that have unique mechanical properties.

The system they developed eliminates a source of bias in simulations, leading to improved algorithms that can boost the performance of applications.

MIT researchers built DiffDock, a model that may one day be able to find new drugs faster than traditional methods and reduce the potential for adverse side effects.