The Cognitive and Immersive Systems Lab (CISL) is a multi-year collaboration program between Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and IBM Research to lead the frontier of research and development in immersive cognitive systems. CISL promotes a culture of multidisciplinary research across science, engineering, art, communications, architecture, and business. Our mission is to create scientific breakthroughs and technical innovations that augment group intelligence in real world scenarios.
Cognitive computing systems are increasingly prevalent in our society. The ways in which we engage information in our daily lives are becoming ever more immersive. The paradigm of human computer interaction will soon shift towards partnership between human beings and intelligent machines through human-scale and immersive experiences. What changes will this paradigm shift bring to our world? How will it transform our society? And how will it help us to solve the large and complex problems we face today?
The core platform of CISL is the Cognitive Immersive Room (also called “Situations Room”) — an immersive, interactive, reconfigurable physical environment that can augment group intelligence in complex problem solving and decision making. The initial domains investigated for the situations room include cyber-enabled exploration and discovery, cognitive and immersive learning, corporate decision making, and intelligence analysis.
Collaboration between IBM & Rensselaer dates back to the 1960’s when Amos was the most powerful supercomputer at a Private Educational Institute in the U.S. at that time. In this new collaboration, CISL has established an extended partnership model for funded research from Government Agencies and Industry Leaders, and maintains an open research ecosystem.
Message from the Founding Director
"The future cognitive and immersive Situations Room is a new type of integrated immersive cognitive system that will augment group intelligence in the context of business, government, and personal life. It represents a new paradigm of group-computer relationship, transforming the way humans live and work."