Massachusetts tech is being framed around a familiar engine: MIT, its research community, its startups and its ties to industry. On June 9, The Boston Globe released its 2026 “Tech Power Players” list, recognizing 50 influential local leaders in technology and business across Massachusetts.
The list includes eight MIT affiliates: President Sally Kornbluth, Prof. Daniela Rus (director of CSAIL), Prof. Regina Barzilay, Prof. Yet-Ming Chiang, Prof. Max Tegmark, Ana Bakshi (executive director of the Martin Trust Center for MIT Entrepreneurship), Katie Rae CEO and Managing Partner of Engine Ventures), and Senior Lecturer Brian Halligan. It also includes a number of MIT alumni.
MIT’s role goes beyond individual recognition
The Globe’s coverage does not treat MIT only as a source of prominent names. It also highlights the Institute’s research labs, culture of innovation and entrepreneurship, industry connections, new AI initiatives, and commitment to maintaining Massachusetts’ technological leadership.
President Kornbluth’s view is direct: “Massachusetts can absolutely lead in this next wave,” she says. The areas named in the coverage are broad: manufacturing, life and health sciences, quantum technologies and energy, all in service of Americans across the country.
That matters because the article frames leadership as an ecosystem question, not a single-company question. MIT’s influence shows up in classrooms, laboratories, startup programs, research centers and partnerships with industry. The common thread is translation: moving ideas from research and discovery toward real-world use.
AI is the most visible test case
Artificial intelligence sits near the center of the Globe’s account of MIT’s current push. Robert Weisman writes that MIT is “working to drive artificial intelligence forward in sectors where the region is strongest, from biotechnology and robotics to defense and clean energy.”
The same coverage describes an effort to broaden entrepreneurship through a “dorm-to-startup” push. That pipeline includes support services “from hack-a-thons to venture funding” intended to help students start companies between classes.
Aaron Pressman writes that “President Sally Kornbluth is reinvigorating the school’s support of the local innovation ecosystem.” The examples named are new online classes dedicated to AI, including free entry-level classes for anyone, and more encouragement for entrepreneurship on campus.
The access point is important. Pressman writes that MIT’s free, online AI courses could help local tech leaders in their challenge “to ensure people, not only corporations, benefit from the technology.” In that framing, AI education is not just a campus offering; it is part of a broader attempt to make the technology more widely useful.
Applied AI links universities, companies and research institutions
The Globe also points to applied AI, sometimes called “AI+X,” as a specialty emerging at MIT and some other Massachusetts schools. Weisman describes this as deploying the technology to help businesses, hospitals and research institutions improve productivity, innovation and scientific breakthroughs.
That applied focus is where the Greater Boston tech scene’s academic base becomes central. Aman Narang ‘04, CEO of Toast, puts it plainly: “The superpower has always been the university system. The best thing Boston can do is keep these people around.”
MIT startups are described as a key driver of the region’s entrepreneurial ecosystem. To respond to growing student interest and help the greater Boston area remain a hub for innovators, MIT is looking to build on more than 150 courses and 85 centers and programs dedicated to fostering an entrepreneurial community.
President Sally Kornbluth and Provost Anantha Chandrakasan recently formed the Committee on Accelerating Translation and Entrepreneurship (CATE). Its purpose is to explore how MIT can best support, remove barriers to and accelerate the movement of ideas from research and innovative discoveries into new ventures.
The demand signal is already visible in the source article. Applications for The Martin Trust Center for MIT Entrepreneurship’s startup accelerator program have doubled from last year. Nearly one-fifth of MIT undergraduates, about 800 students, attended a recent startup career fair.
Energy, hardware and “tough tech” expand the story
The coverage is not limited to software or AI services. MIT startup Liquid AI is developing AI models inspired by the brain structure of a simple worm, with the goal of significantly reducing AI energy consumption.
Pressman explains that Liquid AI’s models, “which can uncover financial fraud and pilot autonomous drones, require far less electricity to operate than large language models, saving energy and water, which is used to cool data centers.” The Globe also reports that Liquid AI recently signed a deal with Mercedes-Benz to incorporate its technology into onboard systems of cars sold in North America.
Energy research is another major part of the Massachusetts tech picture described in the article. In Prof. Yet-Ming Chiang’s lab, researchers are developing batteries that can store more electricity over longer periods, creating “more opportunities for wind, solar, and other clean energy sources.”
Weisman also highlights work in microchips, critical minerals, fusion technology and defense tech. These are described as “tough tech” projects combining science and engineering, which Chiang says “are in the sweet spot of the Boston ecosystem.”
The MIT-GE Vernova Climate and Energy Alliance adds another industry link. Soon, 80 MIT students will work as summer interns and employees at GE Vernova through a collaboration aimed at advancing research and education that will accelerate the global energy transition. GE Vernova CEO Scott Strazik wanted the organization to “plug into the city’s innovation culture,” particularly the MIT campus and community, and the company announced it would dedicate $50 million over five years to fund internships and research projects involving students, faculty, engineers and technicians.
Talent remains the central advantage
When The Globe asks Power Players what is most promising about the Greater Boston tech scene, the answers return to talent, institutions and technical depth.
For Rus, the answer is “talent. Boston has the best AI researchers in the world, and they're producing genuinely new ideas, not incremental ones.” Bob Mumgaard SM ’15, co-founder and CEO of Commonwealth Fusion Systems, says he could not have built the company anywhere but Massachusetts because of the region’s expertise in engineering, designing and manufacturing hardware and equipment, plus access to university researchers.
Mumgaard adds: “The ecosystem has the building blocks.” He also says, “Massachusetts is the strongest in the nation in innovation in energy.”
Kornbluth points to quantum. “There isn’t a more important technological field right now than quantum science and technology, and the Boston area has the greatest concentration of quantum talent anywhere in the world,” she emphasizes.
Taken together, the source article presents MIT as one of the main anchors of Massachusetts tech. Its role is not only to produce research or educate students, but to connect AI, entrepreneurship, energy, quantum technologies and industry partnerships into a working regional system.