Private AI Collaborative Research Institutes: Global Overview

A deep-dive into available sources reveals that the Private AI Collaborative Research Institute is a leading example of a global, multi-stakeholder initiative focused on privacy-preserving and decentralized artificial intelligence. Below is a comprehensive list and summary of such institutes, their collaborators, and their research focus.

1. Private AI Collaborative Research Institute

Founding Partners:

• Intel (lead industry partner)

• Avast (digital security and privacy)

• Borsetta (secure compute hardware services)2479
  

Mission:

• Advance and develop technologies that strengthen privacy and trust for decentralized AI.

• Overcome challenges of centralized AI, such as data silos, privacy risks, outdated models, and high compute costs12679.
  

Key Research Focus:

• Decentralized and privacy-preserving machine learning

• Secure federated learning

• Hardware-assisted security and trusted execution environments

• Protection against data poisoning and model inference attacks169
  

Principal Academic Partners (with Lead Investigators):

• Carnegie Mellon University, USA (Virginia Smith)

• University of California, San Diego, USA (Farinaz Koushanfar)

• University of Southern California, USA (Salman Avestimehr, Murali Annavaram)

• University of Toronto, Canada (Nicolas Papernot)

• University of Waterloo, Canada (N. Asokan, Florian Kerschbaum)

• Technical University of Darmstadt, Germany (Ahmad-Reza Sadeghi, Thomas Schneider)

• Université Catholique de Louvain, Belgium (Axel Legay, Thomas Given-Wilson)

• National University of Singapore (Reza Shokri)

• University of Würzburg, Germany (Alexandra Dmitrienko)124679
  

Research Projects:

• Nine initial projects distributed among eight universities, focusing on privacy-preserving AI at the edge, federated learning, and secure AI infrastructure2679.

2. BCG X AI Science Institute

Launched by:

• BCG X, the tech division of Boston Consulting Group58

Mission:

• Drive AI-powered scientific innovation in areas such as drug discovery, climate modeling, air traffic, and advanced materials.

• Collaborate with top R&D teams across governments and industries58.

Research Focus:

• Accelerate scientific discovery using AI

• Partner with universities, industry experts, and leading R&D teams

• Apply AI to real-world scientific and engineering challenges58

Leadership:

• Led by Adi Zolotov, PhD, and Leonid Zhukov, PhD5

3. Other Notable Collaborative AI Research Centers

While not all are strictly "private" or solely focused on privacy, several global centers are recognized for trustworthy, collaborative AI research, often involving both public and private stakeholders:

Center/Institute	Location	Focus Area
Google AI Research	Global	General AI, privacy, and explainability3
MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology)	USA	Trustworthy AI, privacy, and ethics3
Carnegie Mellon University	USA	Trustworthy and privacy-preserving AI3
University of Luxembourg	EU	Trustworthy AI3
Darmstadt University of Applied Sciences	Germany	Trustworthy AI3
EURECOM	France	Trustworthy AI3

Key Insights and Trends

• Industry-Academic Collaboration: The most prominent private AI collaborative institutes are formed by alliances between major tech companies (e.g., Intel, Avast, Borsetta, BCG) and leading global universities124579.

• Focus on Privacy and Decentralization: The primary mission is to address privacy, security, and trust in AI, especially for decentralized and federated learning scenarios12679.

• Global Reach: These institutes span North America, Europe, and Asia, reflecting a truly international effort124679.

• Emerging Hubs: The US, EU, and select Asian countries (notably Singapore) are leading in the establishment of such research centers3.

Summary List

Major Private AI Collaborative Research Institutes (2025):

• Private AI Collaborative Research Institute (Intel, Avast, Borsetta + 8 global universities)124679

• BCG X AI Science Institute (Boston Consulting Group + global R&D partners)58

Other Key Collaborative AI Research Hubs:

• Google AI Research

• MIT

• Carnegie Mellon University

• University of Luxembourg

• Darmstadt University of Applied Sciences

• EURECOM (France)3

This list reflects the most prominent and well-documented private AI collaborative research institutes worldwide as of 2025, based on available online sources and deep-dive nested searches.

Citations:

1. https://www.private-ai.org

2. https://se.informatik.uni-wuerzburg.de/secure-software-systems-group/news/single/news/intel-launches-private-ai-collaborative-research-institute-1/

3. https://sciencebusiness.net/news-byte/ai/top-18-centres-trustworthy-artificial-intelligence-research

4. https://techrseries.com/artificial-intelligence/avast-and-borsetta-join-intel-in-launching-the-private-ai-collaborative-research-institute/

5. https://www.consulting.us/news/11733/bcg-x-launches-ai-science-institute

6. https://se.informatik.uni-wuerzburg.de/secure-software-systems-group/projects/private-ai-collaborative-research-institute/

7. https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/research/blogs/private-ai-collaborative-research-institute-launch.html

8. https://www.bcg.com/press/15april2025-bcg-x-launches-ai-science-institute

9. https://blog.avast.com/private-ai-research-institute-avast

10. https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/avast-and-borsetta-join-intel-in-launching-the-private-ai-collaborative-research-institute-301186100.html

11. https://www.forskningsradet.no/en/call-for-proposals/2025/research-centres-for-artificial-intelligence-ai-centres/

12. https://innovationisrael.org.il/en/calls_for_proposal/large-models-training-lab-for-ai-research/

13. https://www.futura.law/media-center/news/uk-qatar-project-expand-cooperation-artificial-intelligence-a164c

14. https://sciencebusiness.net/network-updates/iserd-nebius-selected-establish-israels-national-supercomputer

15. https://www.gov.uk/government/news/uk-and-qatar-launch-project-to-boost-artificial-intelligence-collaboration

16. https://press.avast.com/en-us/avast-and-borsetta-join-intel-in-launching-the-private-ai-collaborative-research-institute

17. https://ai.gov.ae/ai_council/

18. https://www.private-ai.org/about/

Answer from Perplexity: pplx.ai/share