Cognizant's AI Lab Achieves Milestones with New Patents and Awards

Cognizant's AI Lab Marks Significant Achievements in 2025

In a notable stride for artificial intelligence development, Cognizant has announced the acquisition of two new U.S. patents, emphasizing the laboratory's continuous drive for excellence in innovation. With this addition, the total number of patents awarded to the AI Lab now stands at 59, alongside 23 pending applications, showcasing its robust research efforts in the AI domain.

Recently declared on July 25, 2025, these patents were divulged during a press release that celebrates the lab’s achievements, within which they also received a Gold Award at the Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference (GECCO) held in Malaga, Spain. This award recognized their research work titled "Realizing Human Expertise through AI," reflecting the lab's commitment to pushing boundaries in transformative AI technologies.

Babak Hodjat, the Chief Technology Officer for AI at Cognizant, emphasized the significance of these advancements in the lab’s research efforts: "The awarding of these two new patents reflects our relentless pace of innovation; coupled with a gold award, these milestones signify our strong commitment to pioneering transformative AI technologies and translating groundbreaking ideas into real impact."

Overview of the New Patents

The newly awarded patents represent crucial technological advancements rooted in Cognizant’s AI research initiatives.

1. U.S. Patent No. 12,282,845 (granted on April 22, 2025): This patent covers a method for 'Multi-objective Coevolution of Deep Neural Network Architectures.' The method aims to boost model performance and resource efficiency, applicable in scenarios ranging from medical image classification to natural language processing.
2. U.S. Patent No. 12,292,944 (granted on May 6, 2025): This patent outlines a method for optimizing loss functions via Taylor Series Expansion, designed to refine training efficiency and enhance model robustness, especially in data-scarce environments.

These innovations are credited to a team of researchers at Cognizant, namely Dr. Jason Liang, Dr. Elliot Meyerson, and professor Risto Miikkulainen, showcasing a blend of academic prowess and practical application.

Open-Sourcing Neuro AI

In a bid to make AI more accessible, earlier this year, Cognizant's AI Lab has open-sourced its Neuro AI Multi-Agent Accelerator. This platform helps accelerate the development and application of AI agents, enabling companies to transform their business processes for adaptive operations, real-time decision-making, and tailored customer experiences aligned with user-defined goals.

RHEA: An Award-Winning Innovation

The Cognizant AI Lab, which opened its flagship AI research facility in San Francisco in March 2024, also garnered accolades during GECCO 2025 for its groundbreaking work on RHEA (Realizing Human Expertise through AI). This project, spearheaded by Dr. Elliot Meyerson and professor Risto Miikkulainen, employs evolutionary AI to synthesize models generated by human expert teams—particularly those submitted for the XPRIZE Pandemic Response Challenge—into refined decision-making strategies.

In rigorous evaluations, RHEA surpassed individual human submissions, uncovering latent potentials even within underdeveloped ideas, thus leading to innovative policy recommendations during pandemics. This landmark achievement underscores Cognizant's leadership in leveraging global human expertise to drive next-generation AI solutions.

Professor Risto Miikkulainen remarked, "RHEA is a powerful example of how evolutionary AI can enhance global human intelligence—not just by matching expert solutions but by stretching beyond them to discover new, impactful strategies." This recognition from the Humies Award committee reinforces the promise of population-based AI in tackling complex global challenges.

Cognizant's Mission and Vision

Cognizant (Nasdaq: CTSH) is dedicated to developing modern enterprises, assisting clients in technology modernization, process redesign, and experience transformation to stay competitive in a rapidly changing world. The Cognizant AI Lab strives to maximize human potential via Decision AI, a technology combining generative AI, multi-agent architecture, deep learning, and evolutionary AI to create advanced decision-making systems.

Led by AI pioneers Babak Hodjat and Risto Miikkulainen, the lab collaborates with academic institutions and tech partners to responsibly develop groundbreaking AI solutions. With over 120 patents (issued or pending), the lab excels in fusing scientific innovation with commercial applications, ultimately advancing Cognizant’s commitment to enhancing daily life through AI for good applications.

Cognizant continues working towards optimizing client decision-making, paving the way for revenue growth and social progress, embodying the spirit of innovation that defines its journey forward.