On June 9, The Boston Globe released its 2026 “Tech Power Players” list, recognizing 50 influential local leaders in technology and business across Massachusetts. The list includes eight MIT affiliates including President Sally Kornbluth, Prof. Daniela Rus (director of CSAIL), Prof. Regina Barzilay, Prof. Yet-Ming Chiang, Prof. Max Tegmark, Ana Bakshi (executive director of the Martin Trust Center for MIT Entrepreneurship), Katie Rae CEO and Managing Partner of Engine Ventures), and Senior Lecturer Brian Halligan, along with a number of MIT alumni.
In addition to recognizing individual leaders, the Power Players coverage highlights MIT’s research labs, its culture of innovation and entrepreneurship, industry connections, new AI initiatives, and the Institute’s deep commitment to maintaining Massachusetts’ technological leadership.
“Massachusetts can absolutely lead in this next wave,” says President Kornbluth, noting that the future is bright with burgeoning opportunities to advance technologies in fields from manufacturing, life and health sciences to quantum technologies and energy in service of Americans across the country.
Advancing AI and entrepreneurship
When it comes to AI, MIT is “working to drive artificial intelligence forward in sectors where the region is strongest, from biotechnology and robotics to defense and clean energy. It’s also trying to broaden entrepreneurship through a ‘dorm-to-startup’ push, creating a pipeline of support services — from hack-a-thons to venture funding — to help students to start companies between classes,” writes Robert Weisman for The Globe.
Looking ahead, The Globe highlights how MIT aims to remain a central driver of AI advancement within higher ed.
“President Sally Kornbluth is reinvigorating the school’s support of the local innovation ecosystem,” writes Aaron Pressman, noting how MIT is “unveiling new online classes dedicated to AI — with free entry-level classes for anyone — and encouraging more entrepreneurship on campus.”
MIT’s free, online AI courses could help local tech leaders in their challenge “to ensure people, not only corporations, benefit from the technology,” writes Pressman.
And when it comes to applying AI technologies to real-world problems, MIT aims to ensure the greater Boston area remains a leader.
“Some schools in Massachusetts, including MIT, are carving out a specialty in applied AI — sometimes called ‘AI+X’ — deploying the technology to help businesses, hospitals, and research institutions to supercharge productivity, innovation, and scientific breakthroughs,” explains Weisman.
Aman Narang ‘04, CEO of Toast, adds: “The superpower has always been the university system. The best thing Boston can do is keep these people around.”
MIT startups are a key driver of the region’s entrepreneurial ecosystem. To ensure the greater Boston area remains a hub for innovators and to respond to growing student interest, MIT is looking to build upon its existing entrepreneurship resources for students, including the more than 150 courses and 85 centers and programs dedicated to fostering an entrepreneurial community. Additionally, President Sally Kornbluth and Provost Anantha Chandrakasan recently formed the Committee on Accelerating Translation and Entrepreneurship (CATE) to explore anew how the Institute can best support, remove barriers to, and accelerate the movement of ideas from MIT’s research and innovative discoveries into new ventures.
Further, reflecting on the optimism surrounding the Greater Boston tech scene, The Globe describes how applications for The Martin Trust Center for MIT Entrepreneurship’s startup accelerator program have doubled from last year, and nearly one-fifth of MIT undergraduates — about 800 students — attended a recent startup career fair.
Innovating change beyond MIT
The simple worm could drive the future of AI. This might sound like a squishy premise, but that’s the idea behind MIT startup Liquid AI, which is developing AI models inspired by the brain structure of a simple worm and could significantly reduce AI energy consumption. Liquid AI’s models, “which can uncover financial fraud and pilot autonomous drones, require far less electricity to operate than large language models, saving energy and water, which is used to cool data centers,” Pressman explains.
The Globe highlights how Liquid AI recently signed a deal with Mercedes-Benz to incorporate its technology into the onboard systems of cars sold in North America.
To power new AI technologies – and ensure Americans across the country can have reliable and affordable energy sources – researchers at MIT and a number of alumni are also turning their attention to the future of energy.
In Prof. Yet-Ming Chiang’s lab, researchers are developing batteries that can store more electricity over longer periods, creating “more opportunities for wind, solar, and other clean energy sources.”
Weisman highlights how “Chiang’s lab and other MIT research centers are also working on innovations in microchips, critical minerals, fusion technology, and defense tech. All are examples of ‘tough tech’ projects combining science and engineering, which Chiang says ‘are in the sweet spot of the Boston ecosystem.’“
Soon, 80 MIT students will work as summer interns and employees at GE Vernova, thanks to the MIT-GE Vernova Climate and Energy Alliance, a collaboration aimed at advancing research and education that will accelerate the global energy transition.
GE Vernova CEO Scott Strazik wanted his organization to “plug into the city’s innovation culture,” particularly the MIT campus and community. The company announced it would dedicate $50 million over five years to fund internships and research projects in which students and faculty work alongside GE Vernova engineers and technicians.
The most promising area for the Greater Boston tech scene
The Globe concludes by asking each Power Player what the most promising thing about the Greater Boston tech scene is right now.
For Rus, the answer is: “talent. Boston has the best AI researchers in the world, and they’re producing genuinely new ideas, not incremental ones,” she explains.
When it comes to realizing the potential of fusion energy, Bob Mumgaard SM ’15, co-founder and CEO of Commonwealth Fusion Systems, explains that he couldn’t have built the company anywhere but Massachusetts thanks to the region’s expertise in engineering, designing, and manufacturing hardware and equipment and access to university researchers.
“The ecosystem has the building blocks,” says Mumgaard. “Massachusetts is the strongest in the nation in innovation in energy.”
President Kornbluth points to quantum.
“There isn’t a more important technological field right now than quantum science and technology, and the Boston area has the greatest concentration of quantum talent anywhere in the world,” Kornbluth emphasizes.
