Announcing the Center for Mathematics and AI at Courant (MAIC)

November 12, 2026

The Courant Institute School of Mathematics, Computing, and Data Science has announced the establishment of its new Center for Mathematics and AI at Courant (MAIC). As described on the center’s website, the mission of the center is to make frontier AI systems an object of scientific inquiry, one that the broad mathematical community can dissect, improve, reproduce—and ultimately—understand. 

A core activity of this mission will be to develop an open foundation model for the mathematical sciences, in partnership with fellow institutions via an academic consortium that MAIC is co-founding. The center will explore key themes around this core project, including AI safety and the mathematical foundations of AI, AI-powered research in pure mathematics and theoretical computer science, its consequences to applied mathematics and computational sciences, and the transformation of training and education. 

MAIC is co-directed by Joan Bruna, Professor of Computer Science and Data Science, and Vlad Vicol, Chair and Professor of Mathematics. The consortium lead is Tristan Buckmaster, Professor of Mathematics. You can find a full list of faculty participants on their website.

“Mathematics is changing faster than any of us imagined, and we can’t keep adjusting on the fly, each on our own,” says Professor Vicol. “We need a reset, probably the first of many.” In establishing MAIC, “We want to build the tools ourselves, out in the open, with colleagues across the mathematical sciences. Something that really ties the room together.”

Professor Bruna envisions MAIC as an opportunity to confront urgent questions in our disciplines: “Artificial intelligence is transforming mathematical sciences and beyond. At present, frontier models capable of mathematical reasoning function as inscrutable black boxes; this poses a compelling scientific mandate to understand their inner workings, opens vast possibilities to enrich surrounding disciplines, and also presents crucial safety considerations that demand rigorous analysis. The MAIC Center is dedicated to navigating these fundamental challenges and opportunities with full transparency, accountability, and an uncompromising commitment to core academic values.”

These values include academic transparency and collaboration, which is a central goal of the consortium led by Professor Buckmaster. “Academic institutions have a vital role to play in guiding model development and guaranteeing access to state-of-the-art tools that reflect the core values of the mathematical community,” he says. “The academic consortium we are co-founding will enable broad collaboration, leverage our collective expertise, and participate in the incipient open AI-scientific ecosystem.”

One of MAIC’s first initiatives has been hosting the hugely-popular Mathematics in the Age of AI seminar series at Courant this semester. This cross-departmental seminar explores the interactions between AI, mathematics, computing, and data science.