From conversation to collaboration: Notre Dame and IBERO launch a school for AI

The original article, written by Norma Sofia Rivera Padilla, was published on Notre Dame Global.

About a year and a half ago, a conversation started. Not in a conference room or on a formal agenda, but the way most academic partnerships often begin— over dinner, between researchers, comparing notes, wondering out loud about their agendas.

The question at the center of the conversation was simple: what could artificial intelligence (AI) become if the people building it were asking the right questions? That was enough to encourage faculty at Notre Dame’s Lucy Family Institute for Data & Society and colleagues at the Universidad Iberoamericana in Mexico City to explore their shared concerns. What turned intention into action came a few months later, in October 2025, when IBERO faculty traveled to Notre Dame to participate in the inaugural RISE AI Conference, hosted by the Lucy Family Institute. RISE AI, which addresses the responsible, inclusive, safe, and empowering use of AI, brought together researchers and practitioners to explore how artificial intelligence can address complex societal challenges without sacrificing ethics.

IBERO faculty came not as observers but as contributors, presenting their work alongside colleagues from institutions across the world and meeting with Notre Dame faculty on campus. By the time they returned to Mexico City, the outline of a real collaboration had taken shape. Nitesh Chawla, Ph.D., founding director of the Lucy Family Institute, assigned a lead to organize what would become the school. The rest moved quickly. Last month, the Escuela Anual de Inteligencia Artificial para el Bien Común—the Annual School of Artificial Intelligence for the Common Good—was launched as a joint initiative between both universities and drew 270 applicants for 40 spots.

The program was designed not to produce AI enthusiasts, but to form something rarer: people who think critically about what they build and why. Open to undergraduate and graduate students, faculty, industry professionals, and decision-makers, it combines public lectures by specialists from academia and industry with hands-on technical workshops focused on deep learning and large language models. But always with an eye toward social impact, particularly the challenges facing Mexico and Latin America.

It is not coincidental that Notre Dame’s contribution to RISE AI is anchored in the Lucy Family Institute and its founding director’s strategic focus on how technology can address societal challenges as a force for good. Recently, Chawla became the director of Notre Dame’s Data, AI, and Computing Initiative—an opportunity that will further advance nearly two decades of research in AI, data science, and network science.

This is also the founding premise of the school. When the conversations between Notre Dame and IBERO faculty began about a year and a half ago, they didn’t have to search for common ground; they were already standing on it.

At the inauguration, Chawla reflected on the shared commitment to building a vision of AI centered on the common good and on the principles of social responsibility that both Notre Dame and IBERO hold. He also spoke about the pressure AI’s rapid advance is placing on universities—not just to keep pace, but to rethink how they prepare students, in all fields, for a world being reshaped by these tools. The problems that matter most, he argued, don’t belong to any single discipline, and addressing them requires interdisciplinary collaboration; AI can be a powerful instrument in that work. Chawla also recognized the unique position universities have to lead the ethical and socially responsible development of AI since their purpose is rooted in community wellbeing rather than profit.

That perspective resonates deeply at IBERO. Andrés Molano, Ph.D., director of the Department of Engineering Studies for Innovation and one of the architects of the school, expressed during his speech, “AI is a powerful technology, but its true value will depend on the human purpose that guides it.” IBERO is not interested in becoming an uncritical promoter of these tools; its goal is to train people who can develop, analyze, and use AI systems with a humanist and socially responsible lens.

The Annual School of Artificial Intelligence for the Common Good is just a small part of a broader institutional bet. IBERO has announced a new undergraduate degree in AI Engineering, a specialized data and AI laboratory equipped with advanced infrastructure, and a commitment to making everything that emerges from the Notre Dame collaboration (recordings, notebooks, materials) freely available online so that the knowledge generated doesn’t stay in the classroom but benefits society as a whole.

For Notre Dame Mexico, the launch represents exactly the kind of partnership that defines Notre Dame’s presence in this country: not a transfer of knowledge from one institution to another, but a genuine collaboration between peers who share a conviction. The university’s engagement in Mexico has long been built on the belief that the most important questions—about equity, opportunity, democracy, human rights, and technology—are best answered together.

As emerging technologies reshape our world, Notre Dame is preparing leaders to ensure innovation remains grounded in ethics and the common good. Philanthropic support helps foster the global partnerships, interdisciplinary collaboration, and educational opportunities that empower faculty and students to guide the future of artificial intelligence in service of humanity.