Source: Unite.AI
New York Governor Kathy Hochul launched a statewide AI science and safety effort on November 10, 2026, putting the New York Center for AI Responsibility and Research at Binghamton University in charge of independent frontier-model testing and a network of more than 80 researchers.
The center, known as NYCAIRR, will pursue that work through independent evaluations, foundational scientific research and training AI safety experts. Its remit covers both assessing current systems and developing measurement tools and standards for increasingly powerful models. The governor’s office said the research is intended to give public officials objective evidence for AI safety and accountability decisions, while supporting responsible applications in medicine, scientific discovery and critical infrastructure.
Independent Testing Across New York
Greg Morrisett, dean and vice provost of Cornell Tech, and Jeannette Wing, executive vice president for research at Columbia University, will serve as interim co-directors. They will guide the scientific agenda, oversee independent evaluations and build the statewide network, whose participants will remain at their home institutions. The center will use advanced computing from Empire AI, a $500 million public-private initiative supporting AI research for the public good.
The research agenda spans how advanced systems operate, how to test their safety and security, whether they behave as intended and how AI can be used responsibly in scientific discovery. A national recruitment effort will seek specialists in mathematical theory, formal methods and verification, agentic and complex systems, hardware security and privacy, interpretability and alignment, and scientific AI and biosecurity.
Hochul presented the independent work as a check on developers’ own accounts. “The stakes are too high to simply take AI companies at their word,” she said.
The center was first announced on January 21, 2026, with a $30 million philanthropic gift from a donor group led by Binghamton alumnus and Bloomberg LP co-founder Tom Secunda and a separate $25 million research capital investment from the State University of New York. New York State is also providing operating capital. The November launch builds on that original public-university research mission by adding the statewide network and independent-evaluation program.
Connection to RAISE Act Oversight
Alongside the research launch, New York opened the RAISE Portal under the Responsible AI Safety and Education Act. Large frontier AI developers must use the portal to register with the state by January 1, 2027. The Office of Digital Innovation, Governance, Integrity, and Trust (DIGIT), within the Department of Financial Services, is implementing the law.
All frontier AI developers operating in New York are subject to safety and transparency requirements, with additional obligations for large developers. Beginning in January 2027, large developers must publish safety frameworks, while all frontier developers must report critical safety incidents and publish model transparency reports. The state’s September 21, 2026 implementation announcement specifies that large developers must report critical safety incidents to DIGIT within 72 hours, file quarterly catastrophic-risk assessments and submit disclosure statements at least every other year.
At the state’s request, NYCAIRR can provide expertise, assessments and evidence for frontier-AI oversight. It will coordinate with DIGIT to review developers’ published safety frameworks and recommend ways to strengthen requirements.
That structure separates regulatory administration from independent technical support: DIGIT handles registration and reporting, while the research network is positioned to test advanced systems and examine the frameworks behind developers’ disclosures. Whether it gives officials useful evidence beyond companies’ own publications will be the practical test of New York’s approach as the January obligations take effect.
