In 2015, Uber opened a research facility around the corner from Carnegie Mellon University's National Robotics Engineering Center in a move positioned as a partnership between the two organizations. Within months, dozens of faculty members had left their positions for full-time roles at Uber, draining the center of much of its talent. Other major tech companies have followed a similar path — in 2018, Facebook launched AI labs in Seattle and Pittsburgh headed by former professors.
These stories provide a window into a tug-of-war that's been playing out between the tech industry and academia. Keen to build products and services that use AI and machine learning, tech firms, and other businesses have been hiring researchers and professors from universities, creating a shortage of academics who can teach the next generation of data scientists. The proportion of computer science PhDs who stay in academia has reached a "historic low," the Computing Research Association has said.