Curiosity, community,
and the future of AI.
Professor of Artificial Intelligence at Wits University. Founding Director of the MIND Institute. Researcher, teacher and builder of African AI communities.
Building the conditions for discovery.
Benjamin Rosman is a professor in the School of Computer Science and Applied Mathematics at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg.
He directs the Robotics, Autonomous Intelligence and Learning (RAIL) Laboratory, where his research focuses on reinforcement learning and decision making in autonomous systems. In 2024, he became founding Director of the Wits Machine Intelligence and Neural Discovery (MIND) Institute, an interdisciplinary home for studying intelligence in machines, humans and animals.
Benjamin co-founded the Deep Learning Indaba, whose locally led communities were active across 47 African countries in 2025. He is a Fellow in CIFAR’s Learning in Machines & Brains programme and was named to the TIME100 Most Influential People in AI list in 2025.
In 2026, he was appointed chair of an independent expert panel assisting the development of South Africa’s national AI policy. Read the Wits announcement ↗
He received his PhD in Informatics and MSc in Artificial Intelligence from the University of Edinburgh, following undergraduate study in computer science and applied mathematics at Wits.
Questions that became institutions.
RAIL Lab
Investigating how autonomous agents learn, plan and interact.
Deep Learning Indaba
Co-founding a community with locally led AI events across 47 African countries in 2025.
Wits MIND Institute
Bringing disciplines together to study intelligence and shape its future.
AI, human dignity and a global conversation.
Benjamin spoke at the Vatican conference Preserving Human Faces and Voices on the human implications of AI. The following day, he met Pope Leo XIV during an audience for conference participants. He spoke briefly with the Pope about South Africa’s AI work and the global race to develop the technology.
More of the story.
A 2025 interview in Communications Biology explores Benjamin’s scientific journey, the relationship between natural and artificial intelligence, and the ambition to build AI research from Africa.
Explore writing and interviews ↗Portrait: Benjamin Rosman, via Communications Biology.