Massachusetts has become renowned for its cutting-edge life sciences industry which has flourished over the past decade and a half. Now a newly-passed economic development package seeks to build on that, while planting the seed for emerging industries like climatetech and artificial intelligence to grow in the Bay State.
Gov. Maura Healey held a ceremonial signing this month for the Mass Leads Act — aiming to create jobs, expand STEM industries, among many other initiatives.
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It includes the third reauthorization of the Life Sciences Initiative, which was originally passed in 2008 and is widely credited with helping to establish Massachusetts as a biotech hub. Plus, it throws $400 million toward climatetech initiatives and $100 million to create the Massachusetts AI Hub.
"It is a really big deal," Massachusetts Secretary of Economic Development Yvonne Hao said. "It's an almost $4 billion economic development bill... a big signature of this $4 billion bill, was $1 billion for the next phase of life sciences and really making sure that we don't rest on our laurels, that we continue to invest and accelerate all of the discoveries, all of the different startups, all the different big companies here."
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Positioning Mass. to be an AI hub
Massachusetts hopes to capture the interest of AI startups and entrepreneurs with the formation of the Massachusetts AI Hub and millions of dollars of funding toward that industry.
"The question for us, Massachusetts, is just like with life sciences, just like with climatetech, how do we use technology for good?" Hao said. "How do we lead to use technology to solve important problems to make the world a better place? And in doing that, create lots of jobs and lots of economic growth for everybody."
The AI industry is wide-ranging — similar in that regard to climatetech — encompassing companies that create AI systems directly, as well as companies that produce products driven by AI. The International Trade Administration, a federal agency, has projected that AI will add an estimated $15 trillion to the global economy by 2030.
Cambridge's Liquid AI a challenger to Silicon Valley's OpenAI
Liquid AI, a Cambridge-based MIT spinoff, is already making major waves in the AI industry. The company announced on Friday $250 million of funding that will help it accelerate its development, scaling and deployment of its AI models.
The company, which now employs around 40 people, has opened an office space in Kendall Square.
"We're focused on building models that are differentiated either in where they can go or what they can do," Head of Product and Head of Business Development at Liquid AI Jeffrey Li said.
Li explained that Liquid's product is much more efficient, meaning it has the ability to run on a device even if the device is offline. This makes AI more accessible in more places, and can even quell privacy reservations some users may have.
"There's plenty of use cases in our day to day lives or we don't have internet connection... like you're hiking or you're on a plane. Or let's say there are instances where the internet's too slow or unreliable, like you're traveling in a foreign country or you're in the military, or you just need a very fast response time," Li said. "These kinds of use cases start to need to deploy AI in different places on your device."
Liquid AI's model is based off breakthrough research by the company's cofounder and Chief Technology Officer, Mathias Lechner.
"We took models that are used in neuroscience research like of neurons, synopses and so on, and to tried to bring them into the machine learning world and controlling robots, drones," Lechner said. "Trying to lower the cost it takes in terms of memory, in terms of compute required to train and run those models."
The Liquid team sees big things coming down the pipeline in the AI industry, explaining that the technology's greatest impact will perhaps come from the things it can do behind the scenes.
"Apply that to life science, apply it to financial services, things like fraud detection and generally trying to make people's lives better in ways that extend way beyond simply chatting to an AI model," Li said.
The company calls the state's investment into the industry "hugely validating," as it continues to attract new employees to its Cambridge headquarters and enjoys growing in an ecosystem buzzing with cutting edge research, education and talent.
It's exactly the selling point Hao give when recruiting new companies here.
"What we have in our state is we have a lot of resources, we have a lot of depth and richness in our ecosystem — but we're a community that cares about each other," Hao said.
Building on life sciences success with new industries
Hao said that Massachusetts has become the "envy" of the world with its life sciences industry, and other states and countries have been trying to play catch up with financial incentives of their own. But with this latest package, Hao is confident Massachusetts can keep its edge.
"Other states and even countries have been very aggressive in trying to recruit our talent in our companies," Hao said. "We now have the resources to ensure that we can continue to kind of help companies start here, stay here, expand here and really become world leaders here and extend and lengthen our leadership."
The state is now betting on emerging industries, too, notably AI and climatetech. Climatetech refers broadly to the industry of green technology seeking to aid in decarbonization and the fight against climate change.
"Fighting climate change is a very important mission that we believe in, and we have all the ingredients here, just like we did in 2008 with life sciences," Hao said. "This set of resources in the bill will help us ensure that we can invest and accelerate and amplify the job of leadership in climatetech."
The bill includes $400 million in capital authorization for climatetech, and on top of that, $300 million in tax incentives for the industry.
MIT's Office of Sustainability held a conference in 2023 bringing together experts in the field to highlight the emerging technologies spanning all industries that are "aiming to craft realistic plans to transition to clean energy systems, hit aggressive carbon zero goals, and adopt a circular economy mindset for their organization."
The Mass Leads Act follows up on many of the goals that were included in the Healey Administration's economic development plan in 2023, Team Massachusetts: Leading Future Generations.
You can read more about the bill in Gov. Healey's signing letter.
