Celebrated physicist Professor Stephen Hawking on Wednesday inaugurated a new artificial intelligence research center at Britain's Cambridge University. Hawkings said the creation of powerful artificial intelligence will be "either the best or the worst thing, ever to happen to humanity."

Professor Stephen Hawking has described the creation of an academic institute devoted to studying the future of intelligence as "crucial to the future of our civilization and our species."

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Cambridge University's new Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence (CFI) ,a multi-disciplinary institute, will try to undertake answers to some of the open-ended problems fostered by the accelerated pace of progress in AI research. 

Backed by a £10 million donation from the Leverhulme Trust, it will delve into AI applications varying from more "smart" smartphones to robot doctors and "Terminator" style army droids. But the main purpose of the center is to secure AI for the good of mankind.

"We spend a great deal of time studying history," The world-renowned physicist said on the occasion of the opening the Centre, "which, let's face it, is mostly the history of stupidity. So it's a welcome change that people are studying instead the future of intelligence."

Although Hawking has frequently been wary about humans creating an AI with super-intelligence and a mind of its own. However, he was optimistic to highlight the positives that AI research can deliver to humanity.

 "It was not possible to predict what might be achieved with AI. Perhaps with the tools of this new technological revolution, we will be able to undo some of the damage done to the natural world by the last one -- industrialization", he said.