The Research Institute of Trustworthy Autonomous Systems (RITAS) is a research institution for trustworthy intelligent autonomous systems, led by Turing Award winner Prof. Joseph Sifakis and integrating the strengths of the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at Southern University of Science and Technology. The institute is based on the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at Southern University of Science and Technology and Shenzhen Key Laboratory of Computational Intelligence. It was granted in November 2019 and its research areas cover key cutting-edge directions such as trustworthy software, information security, autonomous driving, smart city, and intelligent medicine.

Since its establishment, the research institute has always been guided by the needs of national scientific and technological development, with the overall guiding ideology of "integration of science and technology", to carry out basic scientific theoretical research and engineering technology application research on trustworthy intelligent autonomous systems; At the same time, the research institute will establish three supporting service platforms: industrial application, international cooperation, and talent cultivation, to provide support for continuous scientific and technological research, strive to build a world-class trustworthy intelligent autonomous system research institute, enhance Shenzhen's artificial intelligence technology level, promote the upgrading of the artificial intelligence industry and regional economic growth.

At present, there are a total of 78 faculty members in the entire institution, including 1 Distinguished Visiting Professor, 3 Chair Professors, 6 professors, 14 associate professors, and 5 assistant professors in the double tenure-track; In the research-track, there are 2 research associate professors and 6 research assistant professors; There are 20 full-time scientific research teaching assistants, senior research scholars, and research scholars, as well as 21 short-term employed personnel such as visiting students and visiting scholars. At present, the research institute has formed a scientific research talent team with internationally renowned scholars such as Turing Award winners, members of Chinese Academy of Sciences, and national level talents as research leaders, middle-aged and young teachers as subject leaders, and young scientific and technological backbones as the main body, with a reasonable hierarchical structure.