Cognizant AI Lab secures two U.S. patents and wins a prestigious Gold Award at GECCO 2025, bringing its total to 59 U.S. patents and advancing AI innovation for real-world impact.
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| With 59 patents and global recognition, Cognizant’s AI Lab solidifies its role at the forefront of transformative AI technologies and research excellence. Image: C.AI |
TEANECK, N.J. US, July 24, 2025:
Cognizant on Thursday announced a major advancement in its artificial intelligence research efforts as its AI Lab secured two new U.S. patents and received the prestigious Gold Award for Human-Competitive Results at the 2025 Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference (GECCO) in Malaga, Spain. These achievements bring the Lab’s total number of granted U.S. patents to 59, with 23 more pending.
The newly issued patents reflect significant strides in AI architecture and model optimization. One patent, granted in April 2025, outlines a method for the multi-objective coevolution of deep neural network architectures, designed to enhance both performance and computational efficiency across a range of applications, including medical imaging and natural language processing. The second, issued in May, introduces a novel approach to optimizing loss functions using Taylor Series Expansion, aimed at improving model robustness and training efficiency, especially in data-constrained scenarios.
According to Babak Hodjat, Cognizant’s Chief Technology Officer of AI, these milestones demonstrate the Lab’s sustained pace of innovation and its ability to turn advanced AI concepts into tools that deliver measurable impact. “Being granted two new patents and earning a Gold Award in the same year speaks to the depth of our research and the dedication of our team to advancing transformative AI solutions,” Hodjat said.
Central to Cognizant’s recognition at GECCO was its RHEA system—Realizing Human Expertise through AI—developed by Dr. Elliott Meyerson and Professor Risto Miikkulainen. RHEA uses evolutionary algorithms to analyze and recombine hundreds of models submitted by human teams, including entries from the XPRIZE Pandemic Response Challenge. The system was found to outperform individual human-created strategies, offering innovative policy recommendations and revealing untapped value in partially formed ideas.
Miikkulainen, who also serves as Cognizant’s Vice President of Research and Professor of Computer Science at the University of Texas at Austin, described RHEA as a testament to the future of collaborative AI. “This system doesn’t just match human expertise—it amplifies it, generating new insights that were not evident even to domain experts. GECCO’s recognition underscores the potential of evolutionary AI to solve some of the world’s most pressing problems.”
Further advancing the accessibility of AI, Cognizant earlier this year open-sourced its Neuro® AI Multi-Agent Accelerator. This powerful platform enables businesses to build adaptive AI agents capable of real-time decision-making and process optimization tailored to unique operational goals.
Since opening its flagship AI research center in San Francisco in March 2024, the Cognizant AI Lab has remained focused on advancing what it calls Decision AI—a fusion of generative AI, deep learning, multi-agent systems, and evolutionary algorithms. The Lab’s goal is to maximize human potential by creating AI systems that can support high-stakes decisions across industries. With over 120 patents issued or pending globally, the Lab combines scientific rigor with commercial impact to drive both business value and AI-for-good initiatives.