The amount of basic research done in industry is nowhere near the amount done in universities.
At various times, there have been industry labs that had fundamental research activities and have made important scientific contributions.
Examples in information technology include Bell Labs, IBM Research, Xerox PARC, GE, Phillips, NEC, and several other. That disappeared in the 1990s.
Microsoft Research picked up the torch in the 2000s, followed (to some extent) by Google and then Meta (for about a decade until recently).
But their innovations almost always built on top of academic work, and certainly profited from the whole research ecosystem.
Yann LeCun asserts that industry now does far less basic research than…
Brief
Yann LeCun argues industry conducts far less basic research than universities, noting historic contributors—Bell Labs, IBM Research, Xerox PARC, GE, Phillips, NEC—fell away in the 1990s. He credits Microsoft Research in the 2000s, then Google and Meta (Meta for roughly a decade), but insists industry advances nearly always build on academic research and the research ecosystem.
Why it matters
Yann LeCun asserts that industry now does far less basic research than universities — “nowhere near” the academic volume.
Key details
- He cites past industrial research powerhouses (Bell Labs, IBM Research, Xerox PARC, GE, Phillips, NEC) that conducted fundamental work but “disappeared in the 1990s.”
- LeCun says Microsoft Research revived industrial basic research in the 2000s, followed to some extent by Google and Meta (Meta for about a decade until recently), but their innovations largely built on academic work and the wider research ecosystem.