Professors Alán Aspuru-Guzik and Sheila McIlraith have been named AI2050 Senior Fellows by Schmidt Sciences. (photos: Aaron Wynia; supplied)
Renowned artificial intelligence researchers and University of Toronto computer science professors Alán Aspuru-Guzik and Sheila McIlraith have been named 2025 AI2050 Senior Fellows by Schmidt Sciences.
The AI2050 program supports researchers whose projects use artificial intelligence to create ‘immense benefits’ for humanity by 2050. This year’s 21 early career fellows and seven senior fellows are eligible to receive more than $18 million in fellowships.
Alán Aspuru-Guzik, a professor jointly appointed to the U of T departments of chemistry and computer science, conducts research in the interfaces of quantum information, machine learning and chemistry.
He is the Canada 150 Laureate in Theoretical Chemistry and a Canada CIFAR AI Chair at the Vector Institute. He is also a CIFAR Fellow co-directing the Accelerated Decarbonization program.
Apuru-Guzik leads U of T’s Acceleration Consortium, a strategic initiative that gathers researchers from industry, government and academia to envision and create the lab of the future.
His AI2050 project involves developing an “AI chemist," an artificial intelligence system designed to work alongside human chemists to accelerate scientific discoveries in chemistry.
Sheila McIlraith is a professor in the Department of Computer Science and an associate director and research lead for the Schwartz Reisman Institute for Technology and Society at U of T. She is also a Canada CIFAR AI Chair at the Vector Institute. Her research focuses on AI sequential decision making through the lens of human-compatible AI.
McIlraith co-leads U of T’s Embedded Ethics Education Initiative (E3I), which teaches students how to incorporate ethical considerations into the design and deployment of technology.
In her AI2050 project, McIlraith aims to endow AI with a purposeful theory of mind, which could give rise to AI systems that can understand beliefs, desires and intentions of themselves and others, while choosing actions and objectives that consider the welfare and agency of humans.
“The AI2050 fellows are ambitious yet collaborative researchers who focus on AI innovation and the opportunities and challenges in our AI2050 motivating question,” said James Manyika, co-chair of AI2050 and a senior vice president at Google. “This technology can and will bring about an epochal shift in our society — and the AI2050 fellows are shaping that change so it is a benefit for all people.”
Schmidt Sciences is a non-profit organization founded in 2024 by Eric and Wendy Schmidt that works to accelerate scientific knowledge and breakthroughs with the most promising, advanced tools to support a thriving planet. The organization prioritizes research in areas poised for impact including AI and advanced computing, astrophysics, biosciences, climate, and space—as well as supporting researchers in a variety of disciplines through its science systems program.
With files from Schmidt Sciences.