Boston area gains from helix-like entwining of AI, biotech talent
I read with interest Scott Kirsner’s piece on the Commonwealth’s efforts to retain and grow dominance in artificial intelligence (”Mass. hustles to bring AI talent back — and keep it here,” Business, April 25), and I agree that Massachusetts’ historic strengths, plus supportive policy makers who see the long-term economic advantages of competing and winning in AI leadership, can position us well against regions like Silicon Valley. But as one of the life science representatives of Governor Maura Healey’s AI task force, I was surprised that the most obvious advantage we have here in Massachusetts — our unrivaled scale and leadership in biotech — was not highlighted.
While Kirsner points out that a significant portion of investment in AI companies goes to those in the Bay Area, a similar point could be made about investments in Boston-area biotech companies. In 2023, a combined total of more than $10 billion was invested in Cambridge ($7.3 billion) and Boston ($3 billion) biotechs. In contrast, San Diego attracted $3.3 billion and New York $2.9 billion.
Moreover, AI models and machine learning algorithms are becoming core to biotech discoveries and their drug development processes. As a result, AI and biotech talent are becoming interchangeable. For example, at Pioneering Intelligence, the AI initiative of biotech firm Flagship Pioneering, we have an employee who commutes from New York to Cambridge because of the unique opportunity afforded by the Greater Boston ecosystem.
Just as AI will transform industries like retail and finance, its potential to transform how human disease evolves, drugs are developed and deployed, and fundamental biology is understood makes it a crucial life sciences tool. We’re observing here in Massachusetts what the “tech” in biotech has been promising.
Armen Mkrtchyan
Head of Pioneering Intelligence
Flagship Pioneering
Cambridge
