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MIT News
Commencement address by Lisa Su ’90, SM ’91, PhD ’94
Commencement address by Lisa Su ’90, SM ’91, PhD ’94
“Technology itself does not decide what the future looks like,” the chair and CEO of Advanced Micro Devices told the Class of 2026.
MIT News
Publication Date:
May 28, 2026
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At the OneMIT Commencement ceremony, Lisa Su urged MIT's Class of 2026 to be ambitious about the problems they choose to solve.
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Credit: Gretchen Ertl
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At the OneMIT Commencement ceremony, Lisa Su urged MIT's Class of 2026 to be ambitious about the problems they choose to solve.
Credits:
Credit: Gretchen Ertl
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Below is the text of Lisa Su’s Commencement remarks, as prepared for delivery today.<br>Good afternoon.<br>President Kornbluth, Chairman Gorenberg, trustees, faculty, families, friends … and most importantly, the MIT Class of 2026.<br>Congratulations.<br>You earned this.<br>Standing here feels different than I expected.<br>I've given a lot of talks over the years … but this one is personal. And as Murphy’s Law would have it, I somehow managed to lose my voice this week … so please bear with me if my voice sounds a little rough.<br>I came to MIT in the fall of 1986. My parents dropped me off at Next House. I was 17 years old. Born in Taiwan, raised in Queens … and pretty sure I was good at math.<br>Then I walked into 6.001 and 6.002.<br>Within about two weeks, I realized there were a lot of people at MIT who were very, very good at math.<br>I remember staring at those first problem sets thinking … man, these are super hard.<br>I had never really pulled all-nighters until freshman year … it was a new experience, but it was a lot of fun doing it together with your classmates.<br>MIT has this incredible way of pushing you further than you thought you could go.<br>You wrestled with the problem.<br>You blew up a circuit or two.<br>And then, somehow … the thing worked.<br>And suddenly, you realized you could build something real.<br>And, that’s when I started feeling like an engineer.<br>One of the best parts of MIT is UROP.<br>The opportunity, as an undergraduate, to work on real research.<br>That changed my life.<br>My first UROP was in Professor Hank Smith’s lab in Building 39 … making X-ray lithography mask blanks for a graduate student.<br>To be clear, at the time I had absolutely no idea what that actually meant.<br>But I got to put on my first bunny suit, walk into the clean room, and start building devices on little 2-inch wafers.<br>I learned very quickly to be careful because those wafers were delicate, and I definitely did not want to be responsible for breaking them.<br>I ran a bunch of experiments. Most of them didn’t work the way we expected. So, we adjusted. And tried again.<br>It was the coolest thing ever.<br>For the first time, I wasn’t just learning about technology in a classroom. I was part of a team trying to discover something new.<br>I remember thinking: wow, we can build things this small?<br>Things tiny enough to fit on a die the size of a coin … but powerful enough to change the world.<br>And that is when I fell in love with semiconductors.<br>Later, I had the privilege of working with Professor Dimitri Antoniadis, who became my PhD advisor.<br>That was where I really learned how to solve problems.<br>I remember spending weeks in the clean room fabricating devices, then bringing my wafers up to the test lab, only to discover they...