Current Role and MIT FutureTech:

Dr. Neil Thompson is the Director of the FutureTech research group, and Principle Research Scientist at MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab (CSAIL), and at MIT’s Initiative on the Digital Economy (IDE) within the Sloan School of Management. Guided by Dr. Thompson’s leadership, the FutureTech group researches the cutting edge and most important trends driving progress in computing and AI, how these trends underpin scientific progress and economic prosperity, and produces rigorous insights that broaden humanity’s knowledge, and inform policy and industry decisions. Since founding MIT FutureTech in 2019, Dr. Thompson’s research group has attracted over $25M in funding, and has grown to be one of the largest research groups at MIT with over 110 researchers. Dr. Thompson maintains research partnerships with leading organizations such as Google, IBM, Amazon, Accenture, Microsoft, Los Alamos National Labs, and others.

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Previous Roles:

Previously, Dr. Thompson served as an Assistant Professor of Innovation and Strategy at the MIT Sloan School of Management, where he co-directed the Experimental Innovation Lab (X-Lab), and as a Visiting Professor at the Laboratory for Innovation Science at Harvard University. Prior to his academic career, Dr. Thompson has held positions for esteemed organizations such as the Broad Institute, Bain and Company, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, AMD, the World Bank, the United Nations, and the Canadian Parliament. 

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Publication, Research, and Impact:

Dr. Thompson’s work has over 3000 citations with an h-index of 21 across his publication portfolio, including such well known and renowned papers as Expertise, The Computational Limits of Deep Learning, and There’s plenty of room at the Top: What will drive computer performance after Moore’s law? Dr. Thompson has been invited to present his work and recommendations to Congressional Staffers (House and Senate), the US Federal Reserve, the Pentagon, National Security Staff, the Department of Commerce, the Department of Energy, Brookings Institute, and most recently presented at a World Summit on the same program as the Prime Minister of India and Former Prime Ministers of England and Australia. With experience in 80+ countries, Dr. Thompson’s research and impact is on a global scale.

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Education:

Dr. Thompson has a PhD in Business & Public Policy from UC Berkeley, Haas, dual Master degrees’ in Computer Science and Statistics from UC Berkeley, and a Masters in Economics from London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). From his undergraduate studies, Dr. Thompson has Bachelors degrees in Physics, Economics, and International Development studies from Queen's University.

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