Amazon and Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) announced today the launch of the CMU-Amazon AI Innovation Hub, reinforcing a shared commitment to advancing cutting-edge research through academic-private sector partnerships.
The Hub builds on existing collaborations between Carnegie Mellon and Amazon and will include research on generative AI, robotics, natural-language processing, and cloud computing technologies. As part of the collaboration, Amazon will provide substantial funding for research projects, doctoral fellowships and community-building initiatives designed to accelerate innovation in foundational and emerging technologies.

"The convergence of Agentic AI, robotics, and natural-language processing, represents an unprecedented opportunity to reshape how we live and work," said Swami Sivasubramanian, vice president of Agentic AI at Amazon Web Services. "By partnering with CMU, a recognized pioneer in these fields, we're creating an ecosystem where breakthrough research can be rapidly transformed into solutions that benefit society at large."
The Hub's initial focus areas leverage both institutions' strengths in artificial intelligence and robotics, supported by Amazon's global leadership in cloud computing and AI services. Research projects will explore challenges in responsible AI development, advanced robotics systems, and next-generation cloud infrastructure, utilizing CMU’s cross-campus interdisciplinary approach.

“At Carnegie Mellon, we believe that true innovation happens when discovery and application move hand in hand,” said Theresa Mayer, CMU’s vice president for research. "By bringing together our faculty and students with Amazon scientists, we will harness some of the most promising opportunities in AI, robotics and cloud computing. This partnership embodies our strategy to strengthen collaboration across disciplines with industry — creating new pathways for innovation that benefit society and expand the frontiers of knowledge.”
The Hub will support
- Joint research projects between CMU faculty and Amazon scientists;
- Ph.D. fellowships focusing on key technical challenges in AI;
- Regular symposia and workshops to foster collaboration.
The first Hub-sponsored research symposium will be held October 28 on CMU's Pittsburgh campus, and will bring together leading researchers from both institutions to share insights and establish collaborative research agendas.
About Carnegie Mellon University
Carnegie Mellon, cmu.edu, is a private, internationally ranked research university with acclaimed programs spanning the sciences, engineering, technology, business, public policy, humanities and the arts. Our diverse community of scholars, researchers, creators and innovators is driven to make real-world impacts that benefit people across the globe. With an unconventional, interdisciplinary and entrepreneurial approach, we do the work that matters.
About Amazon in Pittsburgh and Pennsylvania
Amazon has maintained a growing presence in Pittsburgh, with research teams focused on natural-language processing, automatic speech recognition, machine translation, information retrieval, spoken-language understanding, edge computing, and text-to-speech.
On June 9, 2025 Amazon announced it plans to invest at least $20 billion in Pennsylvania to expand its data center infrastructure for AI and cloud computing, creating 1,250 new high-skilled jobs and supporting thousands more in the AWS data center supply chain. Since 2010, Amazon has invested $26 billion in Pennsylvania, contributing more than $26 billion to the Commonwealth’s GDP and supporting 27,000 full and part-time jobs, as well as 37,100 indirect jobs across various facilities.