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About

Our core beliefs are that the benefits of data and AI must be justly and equitably distributed, and they must enhance individual and social wellbeing

The Ada Lovelace Institute was established by the Nuffield Foundation in early 2018, in collaboration with the Alan Turing Institute, the Royal Society, the British Academy, the Royal Statistical Society, the Wellcome Trust, Luminate, techUK and the Nuffield Council on Bioethics.

Our mission

We are an independent research institute with a mission to ensure that data and AI work for people and society. We believe that a world where data and AI work for people and society is a world in which the opportunities, benefits and privileges generated by data and AI are justly and equitably distributed and experienced.

We recognise the power asymmetries that exist in ethical and legal debates around
the development of data-driven technologies, and will represent people in those
conversations. We focus not on the types of technologies we want to build, but on
the types of societies we want to build.

Through research, policy and practice, we aim to ensure that the transformative
power of data and AI is used and harnessed in ways that maximise social wellbeing
and put technology at the service of humanity.

Our strategy

Read our strategy to find out more about the work of the Ada Lovelace Institute.

About Ada Lovelace

Ada Lovelace (1815–52) has been adopted globally as a trailblazer for women in maths and science; the daughter of Romantic poet Lord Byron, she was educated by her mother Anne Isabella Noel Byron to excel in mathematics. Her most influential work and writings were produced in relation to Charles Babbage’s Analytical Engine, designed in 1837.

At the Ada Lovelace Institute, we are uniquely connected to Ada’s legacy and conscious every day of the high standards she set for intellectual rigour and analysis.