Two innovation leaders are working together to grow an AI community in Cambridge.
CIC, a Cambridge-based owner of lab and office space aimed at startup companies, and AI venture studio C10 Labs announced plans to establish an AI hub in Kendall Square.
“Massachusetts has a history of having become a biotech hub. The important thing for Massachusetts going forward is really to think through how they can now become the AI hub because that’s going to be the base for economic growth for the next decades,” C10 Labs co-founder Patricia Geli told BostInno.
Building AI startups
While CIC was born more than two decades ago, C10 Labs is a new entrant into the Cambridge ecosystem.
The AI venture studio was created this year by Geli, Shahid Azim and Ramesh Raskar, who met while co-teaching MIT’s AI venture studio class.
Azim said C10 Labs will host programming for cohorts of AI-focused startups and spin out its own companies. Azim previously worked for CIC Health, served as an entrepreneur in residence at Harvard University and co-founded startups like Quanttus and Lantos Technologies.
“We’re bringing in capital, experts, development, engineering resources all under one roof to accelerate opportunities and teams that are working on really meaningful, high-impact products,” Azim told BostInno.
The kickoff of the CIC partnership coincides with C10 Labs’ inaugural winter cohort. Geli said they’ve selected 15 Boston-area teams to take part in the first cohort. The program will run through March. Moving forward, Geli said they hope to host programs in the fall, spring and summer.
C10 Labs is looking for startups using AI in ways that could transform existing markets, with an initial focus on healthcare, agriculture, transportation and energy.
The studio’s startups will have access to physical space at CIC, as well as its programming, events and community.
Creating and retaining AI talent
Building an AI hub is about more than spinning out some startups. It’s also about building and retaining an AI talent pool, Geli said. Pointing to a report by the U.S. by the Center for Security and Emerging Technology, Geli said Massachusetts is dealing with a “big brain drain.”
The 2020 report found that there are more top AI universities in the eastern half of the country and that East Coast hubs have an AI employee growth rate between 30% and 57%. But, the West Coast attracts a significant portion of its talent from universities based in the eastern United States.
There are outside factors that influence where people want to work and live, Geli said, such as affordable housing. But C10 Labs and CIC aim to do their part by building a community and companies centered on AI.
“In order to really keep the talent here, which is going to be the key for the economy going forward, there needs to be a thriving startup community in the space to build the next generation of companies,” Geli said.
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