Located at The University of Arizona, in the Management Information Systems (MIS) Department, the Artificial Intelligence Lab, headed by Dr. Hsinchun Chen, is an internationally-known research group in the areas of digital libraries, intelligent retrieval, collaborating computing, and knowledge management. The group is known for its adaptation and development of scalable and practical artificial intelligence, neural networks, genetic algorithms, statistical analysis, computational linguistics, and visualization techniques.

The MIS Programs at the University are designed to develop and apply relevant, state-of-the-art computer technology, quantitative techniques, and managerial skills to the information technology problems of organizations. The department has been ranked third nationally by US News & World Report over the past eight years. The department's reputation has resulted in more than $25,000,000 in research and instructional support over the years. Funding grants have come from major corporations and government agencies.

Founded in 1990, the Lab is a major research group within the MIS department and boasts over forty staff members, including Ph.D.-level researchers and research scientists, assistants, and programmers. Staff members specialize in digital libraries, database integration, collaborative computing, knowledge management, Internet/Intranet technologies, and intelligent information retrieval. Staff and students participate in all aspects of working in and managing the Lab including: designing and conducting research; designing and implementing user studies; developing systems and system architectures in support of research objectives; writing articles and chapters for publication; presenting research results at national and international conferences; and writing grant proposals for new and emerging areas of research in the Lab. See the “People” page for a directory of past and current staff and students.

The Lab is equipped with over 25 high-end workstations, an SGI supercomputer (Origin2000), and high-speed networking equipment. Research development platforms have ranged from supercomputers (CM-5, HP Convex Exemplar, SGI Power Challenge and Origin2000), to workstations (Silicon Graphics, HP, and DEC Alpha), and Pentium-based Windows/NT. Extensive C, C++, CGI, and JAVA system engineering projects have been underway for the past several years. See the “Facilities” page for details on our current equipment, and the “Research” page for more information about our projects.

The Lab has received has received more than $17M in research funding from the National Science Foundation (NSF), the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the National Library of Medicine (NLM), the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the National Institute of Justice (NIJ), Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA), and other agencies and corporations over the past 15 years. Corporate sponsors have included Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC), SiliconGraphics Computer Systems (SGI), 3Com, and AT&T. See the “Funding” page for more information about funding received, and the “Research” page for more information on past and current projects.