Imperial has signed a memorandum of understanding with IBM to build on their long-term relationship to address global challenges.

IBM and Imperial have signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to mark a new phase in the long-term partnership between the two organisations.

The agreement was signed during an event celebrating a joint plan to pool expertise from IBM and Imperial to focus on translational work across strategic challenge areas including climate and sustainability, the future of computing, accelerated discovery, and AI.

From research to global solutions

Under the sustainability theme, the organisations aim to bring together experts, students and communities from both organisation to explore new ways of reducing pollution and leveraging geospatial foundation models for analysing urban and remote areas.

The new phase of this partnership will bring together expertise in climate, sustainability, computing, and artificial intelligence to tackle vital global challenges.” Professor Hugh Brady President of Imperial College London

They also propose to design new approaches combining large language models with foundation models that are capable of a wide range of general tasks and trained with remote sensing data for understanding climate-related phenomena such as methane emissions. Work will also aim to strengthen fairness in AI to generate more equitable global solutions.

The proposed work on accelerated discovery through computing aims to leverage AI foundation models to speed up materials discovery, including target identification and rapid evaluation of high throughput experimental results at scale.

Additionally, the AI theme could see Imperial and IBM coming together to explore AI applications across industries including automotive, agriculture and energy, and to collaborate on addressing challenges such as safeguarding privacy, fortifying security, and enhancing trustworthiness.

This effort will build on IBM and Imperial’s roles as a founding member of the AI Alliance – a global community of technology creators, developers, and adopters established in 2023 to advance safe, responsible AI rooted in open innovation.

Building on a long-standing relationship

Professor Hugh Brady, President of Imperial College London, said: “I look forward to strengthening Imperial’s long-standing relationship with IBM through this agreement, which reflects our mutual commitment to innovation and scientific advancement, alongside our shared values. The new phase of this long-term partnership will see us bring together a diverse range of expertise in climate, sustainability, computing, and artificial intelligence to tackle vital global challenges.”

Professor Mary Ryan, Imperial’s Vice-Provost (Research and Enterprise) said: “This MOU brings together two organisations that share a commitment to creating a more sustainable future. We realise that urgent global challenges are complex and require systems-thinking and convergence science approaches to address them. I am looking forward to seeing the impact we can deliver together, by combining Imperial’s frontier research with IBM’s rich history in research and development of computing and AI infrastructure. The vision of our partnership exemplifies Imperial's new strategy, Science for Humanity, with the aim of societal benefit at its core.”

This MOU is strengthening our collaboration with Imperial, and I am looking forward to working together on more trailblazing projects, and advancing AI research for the benefit of humanity. Dr Alessandro Curioni Vice President of IBM Europe and Africa

Dr Alessandro Curioni, Vice President of IBM Europe and Africa, agreed. “This MOU is strengthening further our collaboration with Imperial, and I am looking forward to working together on more trailblazing projects, and advancing AI research for the benefit of humanity. There is so much AI is doing already, but the potential of this cutting-edge technology is huge – especially when it comes to helping the world deal with challenges like climate and sustainability as well as materials discovery,” Dr Curioni said.

Dr Juan Bernabé-Moreno, Director IBM Research Europe for UK and Ireland, added that the MOU will help to “take the collaboration to the next level, where it matters the most. We will explore new ways to leverage truly transformational technologies, especially AI, to accelerate science for climate and sustainability, to speed up the discovery of new materials, and continue to make AI trustworthy, privacy-preserving and secure. This MOU highlights as well our commitment to solving big problems through our strong academia-industry partnership while protecting an ecosystem of open innovation.”

Industry partnerships

Companies that wish to partner with Imperial academics can begin a discussion by contacting Imperial Enterprise.

Photo at top shows (back row left-right) Professor Bob Shorten (Imperial), Dr Bradley Eck (IBM), Professor Nigel Brandon (Imperial), Dr Nicola Hodson (IBM), Dr Jing Pang (Imperial), Professor Riccardo Sapienza (Imperial), Professor Mary Ryan (Imperial), Dr Juan Bernabé-Moreno (IBM) and (front row) Dr Alessandro Curioni (IBM) and President Hugh Brady (Imperial) at the MOU signing. Photo: Jo Mieszkoswki