University of California, Santa Cruz
The University of California, Santa Cruz (UCSC) is a world-class public research university founded in 1965, located in Santa Cruz, California. Its Baskin School of Engineering is home to AI safety-relevant research programs, including the Vision, Learning, and Assured Autonomy (VLAA) Lab led by Professors Cihang Xie and Yuyin Zhou, which focuses on adversarial robustness, securing AI perception systems under distribution shifts, and defending against adversarial attacks on embodied AI. Open Philanthropy has awarded multiple grants to UCSC in support of this work. The university also operates a Generative AI Center and broader interdisciplinary AI research initiatives emphasizing responsible, ethical, and safe AI development.
Funding Details
- Annual Budget
- $1,000,000,000
- Monthly Burn Rate
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Theory of Change
UCSC's AI safety-relevant research operates on the theory that improving the technical robustness of AI systems — particularly defending against adversarial attacks, distribution shifts, and manipulation of embodied AI — directly reduces near-term and long-term safety risks from deployed AI systems. By publishing adversarial robustness research and training graduate students in these methods, the university contributes to the broader field of technical AI safety and helps build the research talent needed to make advanced AI systems more reliable and secure.
Grants Received
from Open Philanthropy
from Open Philanthropy
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Details
- Last Updated
- Apr 2, 2026, 9:54 PM UTC
- Created
- Mar 20, 2026, 2:34 AM UTC