Announcing MongoDB as a Founding Member of the NIST AI Safety Institute Consortium

The U.S. Department of Commerce’s National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is establishing the U.S. Artificial Intelligence Safety Institute Consortium (AISIC) to support the development and deployment of safe and trustworthy AI.

Alongside MongoDB from the technology sector, the Consortium includes Amazon.com, AMD, Anthropic, Apple, Cohere, GitHub, Google, Hugging Face, Inflection AI, Intel, Meta, Microsoft, Nvidia, OpenAI, and Salesforce. In total, the Consortium brings together over 200 AI creators and users, academics, government and industry researchers, and civil society organizations. Together the members are focused on the R&D necessary to enable safe, trustworthy AI systems and underpin future standards and policies. You can see the complete list of current Consortium members on the NIST website.

The Consortium will collaborate to develop science-based and empirically backed guidelines and standards for AI measurement and policy, laying the foundation for AI safety across the world. This will help prepare the U.S. to address the capabilities of the next generation of AI models or systems, from frontier models to new applications and approaches, with appropriate risk management strategies.

Secretary of U.S. Department of Commerce Gina Raimondo said, “The U.S. government has a significant role to play in setting the standards and developing the tools we need to mitigate the risks and harness the immense potential of artificial intelligence. President Biden directed us to pull every lever to accomplish two key goals: set safety standards and protect our innovation ecosystem. That’s precisely what the U.S. AI Safety Institute Consortium is set up to help us do. Through President Biden’s landmark Executive Order, we will ensure America is at the front of the pack—and by working with this group of leaders from industry, civil society, and academia, together we can confront these challenges to develop the measurements and standards we need to maintain America’s competitive edge and develop AI responsibly.”

MongoDB’s contributions to the Consortium

Capitalizing on the experience gained working with startups, enterprises, and governments building and deploying AI-powered applications, MongoDB will contribute its expertise and resources across multiple fields including:

• Multi-cloud, globally distributed databases along with vector search and retrieval technology such as MongoDB Atlas Vector Search that power AI apps at scale.

• Developer experience engineering gained from building applications that integrate with the ecosystem of AI models and frameworks across all of the most popular programming languages.

• Data governance and cybersecurity technologies such as its groundbreaking Queryable Encryption to protect data and preserve privacy.

“We believe that technology driven by software and data makes the world a better place, and we see our customers building modern applications achieving that every day,” said Lena Smart, Chief Information Security Officer at MongoDB. “New technology like generative AI can have an immense benefit to society, but we must ensure AI systems are built and deployed using standards that help ensure they operate safely and without harm across populations. By supporting the U.S. Artificial Intelligence Safety Institute Consortium as a founding member, MongoDB’s goal is to use scientific rigor, our industry expertise, and a human-centered approach to guide organizations on safely testing and deploying trustworthy AI systems without stifling innovation.”

In addition to involvement in the AISIC, the MongoDB Atlas for Government program enables U.S. government departments to accelerate their time-to-mission with a database designed for developer productivity and broad workload support. MongoDB Atlas provides government-grade security running in a FedRAMP Moderate Authorized, dedicated environment.

NIST’s role in setting technology standards

As a part of the U.S. Department of Commerce, NIST plays a pivotal role in developing technology, metrics, and standards aimed at enhancing economic security and improving the quality of life for U.S. citizens. Through its rigorous research and development activities, NIST provides critical guidance and support for industries and science, ensuring the reliability and accuracy of measurements and standards essential for innovation and competitiveness in the global marketplace.