Eric Xing

Profile

Eric Poe Xing is an American computer scientist serving as president of Mohamed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence (MBZUAI) since January 2021. He also serves as a Professor of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University and Co-Founder and Chief Scientist at GenBio AI. Xing holds a PhD in Molecular Biology and Biochemistry from Rutgers University and a PhD in Computer Science from the University of California, Berkeley, along with a B.Sc. in physics from Tsinghua University in 1993.

Xing's research focuses on statistical machine learning, probabilistic graphical models, and systems for distributed machine learning. His scholarly contributions are substantial: he has authored or contributed to more than 370 cited research papers and reports, with research cited more than 35,000 times by leading academics and academic journals.

Xing was elected a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers in 2019 for contributions to machine learning algorithms and systems, and a Fellow of the Association for Computing Machinery in 2022 for contributions to algorithms, architectures, and applications in machine learning. He is also a recipient of the National Science Foundation Career Award, the Alfred P. Sloan Fellowship, the United States Air Force Office of Scientific Research Young Investigator Award, and the Carnegie Science Award.

Career History

• 2024-present: Co-founder and Chief Scientist at GenBio AI, a US-based startup aimed at creating AI-driven digital organisms for modeling medical treatments
• 2021-present: President of Mohamed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence (MBZUAI)
• 2016-present: Co-founder and CEO of Petuum Inc.; in 2017, Petuum raised $93 million in venture funding from SoftBank, and in 2018 was named a World Economic Forum Technology Pioneer
• 2004-present: Faculty member at Carnegie Mellon University School of Computer Science, where he founded the Statistical Artificial Intelligence and Integrative Genomics (SAILING) Lab
• 2015: Founding director of Carnegie Mellon's Center for Machine Learning and Health, established as part of the Pittsburgh Health Data Alliance
• 2010-2011: Visiting research professor at Facebook Inc. and visiting associate professor in the Department of Statistics at Stanford University
• 2014, 2019: Served as co-Program Chair and General Chair respectively of the International Conference on Machine Learning (ICML)

What Eric Xing could bring to his role as President at MBZUAI: With his extensive background scaling research operations at Carnegie Mellon, founding successful AI startups, and building distributed systems for machine learning, Xing brings proven expertise in translating academic research into industrial applications. His track record building the SAILING Lab and establishing the Center for Machine Learning and Health demonstrates his ability to establish pioneering research institutions. His leadership at MBZUAI has already resulted in launching the Institute of Foundation Models and directing development of significant open-source models, positioning the university as a key player in sovereign AI capabilities while maintaining academic rigor and international collaboration.