Columbia University opens center for artificial intelligence in real estate and fine technology
The organization will focus on artificial intelligence, advanced data science and machine learning.
Columbia University has started its Center for Artificial Intelligence in Business Analytics and FinTech. According to the announcement, the intention is to find new ways to apply advanced data science and artificial intelligence, including machine learning and deep learning, to real estate and finance.
The group is part of the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) and is led by some of the best financial technologists in the world with experience from major Wall St. firms and hedge funds.
“The software we develop is done in collaboration with our partners with the intent of integrating these solutions into their daily workflow,” Josh Panknin, director of Real Estate AI Research and Innovation at the center, said in a release. “Our collaboration involves developing more holistic platforms that provide deep insight into market behavior and investment decisions using cutting-edge analysis models. We don’t do things that have already been done. We focus on offering new opportunities to our partners.”
The institution specifically points to a “void” in real estate and its image of lagging behind technical innovation for four reasons: little in-house technical expertise; heavy reliance on off-the-shelf and non-original technology; years of excessive hype and claims leading to unrealistic expectations of what it takes to develop and integrate technology; and disappointing returns from the estimated more than $100 billion invested in proptech.
There are several ways they hope to have an impact on real estate, including developing open sources of training data, working directly with companies to “build competitive advantage,” training engineers with experience in real estate data science, or presenting research results to industry.
“We use our financial experience from Wall St. and hedge funds, combined with our technical expertise in advanced analytics, to better understand industry needs and offer solutions based on technologies that have not been used before,” quoted Professor Ali Hirsa, director of the Center for AI in Business Analytics and FinTech and Director of Financial Engineering at SEAS. “This adds significant value to their operations through improved efficiency and new opportunities. Our goal is to bring the more sophisticated approaches to financial technology that have been used for years by hedge funds and Wall St. into the real estate sector.”
The advisory board draws on real estate executives and technical experts with experience from organizations such as CBRE, Northstar Asset Management, Mack-Cali Realty Corporation, IBM, Goldman Sachs and Apollo Global Management.
