About Us

The Center for Research on Foundation Models (CRFM) is an interdisciplinary initiative at the Stanford Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence (HAI) that makes fundamental advances in the study, development, and deployment of foundation models.

The center brings together a multidisciplinary group of faculty, students, researchers, and engineers spanning 10+ departments at Stanford.

CRFM initiatives relate to:

  • Technical foundations. We conduct research to better understand and build better foundation models: our research spans data, systems, architectures, training, adaptation, inference, interpretability, evaluation, and new technical paradigms.
  • Beneficial applications. We build foundation models and other resources in specialized domains like law, music, robotics, and biomedicine.
  • Societal impact. We conceptualize and clarify how foundation models impact society by considering matters like transparency, supply chains, openness, copyright, privacy, and systemic risk.
  • AI policy. We support governments in formulating and implementing evidence-driven policy across multiple jurisdictions.

What is a foundation model?

Foundation models are powerful resource-intensive models that have emerged as the dominant paradigm for AI in the 2020s. To learn more, watch our explainer.

WHY DO WE CARE?

Foundation models present novel capabilities and risks that are poorly understood. Nonetheless, they are being deployed at scale.