Allen Institute for AI CEO Ali Farhadi steps down as nonprofit navigates changing AI landscape – GeekWire
Ali Farhadi is stepping down as CEO of the Allen Institute for AI (Ai2), after a two-and-a-half-year tenure that brought the Seattle-based nonprofit research center growing recognition as a key player in the world of open source artificial intelligence.
He will be replaced on an interim basis by Peter Clark, a founding member of Ai2, as the board begins its search for a permanent replacement. Clark served in the same interim role after the departure of founding CEO Oren Etzioni in 2022. Farhadi’s last day is Friday.
The announcement was made Thursday morning to the Ai2 group of about 200 people, said board chairman Bill Hilf, in an interview with GeekWire shortly after the internal meeting.
Hilf said that he and Farhadi have been discussing the transition for about six months. Farhadi wants to pursue his research ambitions at the frontier of big AI, where for-profit companies spend billions of dollars a year using horsepower, Hilf said.
Asked why Farhadi couldn’t continue that work at Ai2, Hilf cited the financial realities of competing with tech giants on the largest scale of AI model development as a nonprofit. He said the board should weigh whether welfare dollars are being better spent trying to keep pace.
“The cost of doing open model research is staggering,” Hilf said, adding that “it’s really hard to do high-quality model work within a nonprofit organization.”
Hilf said Ai2 will continue its work in areas including OLMo, its open source AI models, while reiterating its focus on applying AI to real-world problems in areas such as climate, conservation and health.
A computer vision specialist, Farhadi had deep roots in Ai2. He joined the institute in 2015 and founded the Ai2 spinout Xnor.ai, which Apple acquired in 2020 for an estimated $200 million in one of the institute’s biggest commercial successes.
He led machine learning efforts at Apple before returning to lead Ai2 in July 2023.
Farhadi has not said where he will go. He is expected to continue as a professor at the University of Washington’s Allen School of Computer Science and Engineering.
“Leading Ai2 has been a real privilege,” Farhadi said in a statement, citing the Ai2 team’s release of more than 300 models and artifacts with more than 33 million downloads.
He cited advances in health, science, and environmental research, and cited investments from NSF and Nvidia and initiatives such as the Cancer AI Alliance as examples of its impact.
“Ai2 is entering its next phase from a position of real strength, with growing acceptance of our work around the world and an amazing team driving it,” said Farhadi. “I’m excited to see them continue to push the boundaries of what AI can achieve for humanity.”
Farhadi will leave the Ai2 board. Chief Operating Officer Sophie Lebrecht is also leaving. Lebrecht worked with Farhadi at Xnor.ai and Apple before joining him at Ai2.
Hilf noted that all programs planned for 2026 are fully funded and that Farhadi wanted to ensure that stability before stepping down.
Existing commitments are not affected, Hilf said, including a $152 million, five-year initiative supported by the National Science Foundation and Nvidia to build open AI models for scientific research, and Ai2’s role in the Cancer AI Alliance led by Seattle’s Fred Hutch Cancer Center.
Ai2 was founded in 2014 by the late Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen. It receives major funding from the Foundation for Science and Technology, which is Allen’s foundation. Jody Allen is on the Ai2 board.
Clark, the interim CEO, said in a statement that he is committed to a smooth transition.
“Our mission has not changed: to advance AI research and engineering for general benefit, and to turn our open-source achievements into lasting, real-world impact,” he said.
Hilf said the board is looking for a new CEO who combines deep science and nonprofit management experience with a passion for open science, acknowledging that the combination is rare and that building an open community is harder than people think.
