Menu

Home

The Science of Intelligence meets the Engineering of Intelligence

Spotlights

Prof. Leslie Kaelbling mid-conversation in front of a table with robotics displayed

News

A New Name, A Continued Commitment

A recent major gift from the Siegel Family Endowment is enabling us to expand our research and activities, and we are now The MIT Siegel Family Quest for Intelligence. We celebrated on Nov. 24, at The Next Horizon: Quest's Future. Recordings of the talks and discussion are available.

SQI Leadership team

News

December 2025 News

Thanks to a generous gift from The Siegel Family Endowment, the MIT Quest for Intelligence is now the MIT Siegel Family Quest for Intelligence. Read more about our re-launch event and what's next for the new Quest.

CBMM logo

Our Roots

Center for Brains, Minds, and Machines

The Quest for Intelligence is built on the Foundations of CBMM, a multi-institutional NSF Science and Technology Center dedicated to the study of intelligence — how the brain produces intelligent behavior and how we may be able to replicate intelligence in machines.

Robot arm, attached to a table, is selecting and picking up blocks.

Research

Parallel-Planning

Quest Researchers have developed a new machine-learning algorithm for robot task planning that lets robots “think ahead” by evaluating thousands of possible ways to solve a task in parallel and refining them to meet the physical and geometric constraints of the robot and its environment. 

computer generated scene including purple grains (on left) and a purple block (on right)

Research

Things vs. Stuff

Researchers have recently determined that specific regions of the brain are involved in distinguishing between “things” and “stuff” — “Things” are solid, countable objects like apples, and “stuff” is material that is not countable, like liquids.

Prof. Leslie Kaelbling mid-conversation in front of a table with robotics displayed

News

A New Name, A Continued Commitment

A recent major gift from the Siegel Family Endowment is enabling us to expand our research and activities, and we are now The MIT Siegel Family Quest for Intelligence. We celebrated on Nov. 24, at The Next Horizon: Quest's Future. Recordings of the talks and discussion are available.

SQI Leadership team

News

December 2025 News

Thanks to a generous gift from The Siegel Family Endowment, the MIT Quest for Intelligence is now the MIT Siegel Family Quest for Intelligence. Read more about our re-launch event and what's next for the new Quest.

CBMM logo

Our Roots

Center for Brains, Minds, and Machines

The Quest for Intelligence is built on the Foundations of CBMM, a multi-institutional NSF Science and Technology Center dedicated to the study of intelligence — how the brain produces intelligent behavior and how we may be able to replicate intelligence in machines.

Robot arm, attached to a table, is selecting and picking up blocks.

Research

Parallel-Planning

Quest Researchers have developed a new machine-learning algorithm for robot task planning that lets robots “think ahead” by evaluating thousands of possible ways to solve a task in parallel and refining them to meet the physical and geometric constraints of the robot and its environment. 

computer generated scene including purple grains (on left) and a purple block (on right)

Research

Things vs. Stuff

Researchers have recently determined that specific regions of the brain are involved in distinguishing between “things” and “stuff” — “Things” are solid, countable objects like apples, and “stuff” is material that is not countable, like liquids.

    Missions + Platforms

    To understand intelligence, the Quest fosters and funds research Missions, which are supported by Platforms.

    • Perceptual Intelligence

      The Perceptual Intelligence mission aims  to produce machine executable models of human visual intelligence. Read More

    • Scaling Inference

      The Scaling Inference team pursues an alternate scaling route for AI systems and for NI models, based on inference in probabilistic programs. Read More

    • The Development of Intelligent Minds

      This mission aims to understand how children grasp new concepts and build upon layers of concepts to reach an understanding of the world. Read More

    • Intelligence Observatory

      The Intelligence Observatory is a human behavioral testing and benchmarking platform. Read More

    • Embodied Intelligence

      The Embodied Intelligence mission addresses how we perceive the world around us and integrate this information to plan and complete tasks. Read More

    • Brain-Score

      The Brain-Score platform aims to yield accurate, machine-executable computational models of how the brain gives rise to the mind. Read More

    • Language and Thought

      The Language and Thought mission aims to understand the relationship between language and human intelligence. Read More

    See all Missions + Platforms »

    News

    See all news »