{
  "id": 1727017,
  "title": "Q&A: Rethinking how innovation happens",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/08/17/q-a-rethinking-how-innovation-happens-1727017",
  "topic": "ai",
  "section": "AI",
  "published": "2026-08-17T19:50:00.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "MIT News AI",
    "slug": "mit-news-ai",
    "url": "https://news.mit.edu/2026/qa-eugene-fitzgerald-rethinking-how-innovation-happens-0817"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "Innovation has become a mythologized concept in modern times, writes Eugene Fitzgerald in his latest book, \"The Invisible Engine: Why Innovation Evades Control.\" Fitzgerald, the Merton C. Flemings SMA Professor in MIT's Department of Materials Science and Engineering, explores innovation as the integration of market applications, technology, and implementation through his decade-long work leading international research programs.\n\nThe book delves into how innovation actually happens and how society should invest in it, particularly in a world where artificial intelligence is reshaping knowledge and research. Fitzgerald discusses his experiences with innovation, including his co-invention of strained silicon at AT&T Bell Laboratories in the 1990s, which contributed to extending Moore's Law.\n\nFitzgerald introduces the term \"invisible engine,\" which refers to the decentralized collective intelligence of individuals and companies that create surprise in the marketplace, leading to great profit. This surprise is what economist Frank Knight described in the early 1900s when examining entrepreneurs and their role in the Industrial Revolution.\n\nFitzgerald describes three different types of research investment: altruistic science, strategic research, and fundamental innovation. Altruistic science aims to produce educated individuals but does not guarantee economic impact. Strategic research is organized around a specific goal, usually tied to a customer, and has broad uncertainty due to multiple technological domains. Fundamental innovation represents the entirety of the research-to-economic-growth process.\n\nThroughout his career, Fitzgerald's experience transitioning from Bell Labs to MIT to a startup and then to industry adoption served as a practical example of the innovation process. He emphasizes the importance of understanding this process and incorporating knowledge of it into large collaborative research programs to adapt to future uncertainty.",
  "summary": "In his latest book, Professor Eugene Fitzgerald examines the forces that turn breakthroughs into value — and why innovation resists simple formulas.",
  "key_points": [],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 1,
    "also_reported_by": []
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}