Financial and Business Analytics

The Center for Financial and Business Analytics seeks to shape the future of AI in decision-making by developing foundational theory, fostering interdisciplinary research, and partnering with industry and government to solve complex business and societal challenges. By bringing together researchers across machine learning, optimization, statistics, operations, finance, economics, and marketing, the Center creates a unique interdisciplinary community for advancing both the foundations and applications of data-driven decision making. Through cutting-edge research, education, and deep engagement with industry, the Center aims to translate advances in AI into decision systems that are scalable, robust, and capable of addressing some of the most consequential challenges facing businesses and society.

Our research thrusts are organized around the broad theme of AI for Decision Making, developing methods that combine AI, optimization, and domain knowledge to improve decisions under uncertainty. Within this umbrella, the Center focuses on the following thrust areas:

AI in Supply Chains: including cloud and AI infrastructure: We study how AI can transform sourcing, inventory, capacity, placement, and fulfillment decisions across complex supply networks, including emerging cloud and AI infrastructure supply chains where compute, data-center location, energy availability, resilience, and sustainability are increasingly interconnected.
Supply Chain Risk Modeling and Prediction: We develop data-driven approaches that combine network, operational, and unstructured data to anticipate supply chain disruptions and translate emerging risk signals into better sourcing, inventory, capacity, and network decisions.
Digital Platforms and Marketplace Analytics: We develop AI, optimization, and economic methods for pricing, matching, recommendation, experimentation, and marketplace design in digital platforms where learning, operational decisions, and strategic behavior are deeply intertwined.

The above areas are important examples of the Center's broader agenda of advancing AI for decision making across business and society that has the potential to create significant economic and societal value.