The University of Florida is poised to run the fastest artificial intelligence-rooted supercomputer in U.S. academia by early 2021 following millions in gifted funding provided by Nvidia, the two announced on Tuesday.
“Congratulations to the University of Florida and NVIDIA for their announcement today of a transformational partnership to create higher education’s most powerful AI supercomputer and develop a workforce training program that will jumpstart the next generation of discovery and innovation. This initiative will empower students and arm them with new tools to succeed in the 21st century economy. The University of Florida is a top-tier public research university, and I commend NVIDIA for using this opportunity to form this public-private partnership that will exponentially leverage the prior and current investments by the state and federal government in our research at institutions of higher education.”
U.S. Senator for Florida Marco Rubio
The $70 million project will fund construction of an AI-centric supercomputing and data center and is intended to make UF one of the leading AI universities in the country, according to UF and Nvidia. As part of the partnership, they will boost the capabilities of the university’s supercomputer, HiPerGator, with the recently announced Nvidia DGX SuperPOD architecture, designed for “rapid deployment and scaling of massive AI infrastructure,” with the revamped system scheduled to be operational by early 2021.
“Over the coming years, tens of thousands of University of Florida graduates with this unique AI-oriented background will create their futures and ours, transforming our workforce and virtually every field and every industry here in Florida and around the world.”
NVIDIA will also contribute its AI expertise to UF through ongoing support and collaboration across the following initiatives:
- The NVIDIA Deep Learning Institute will collaborate with UF on developing new curriculum and coursework for both students and the community, including programing tuned to address the needs of young adults and teens to encourage their interest in STEM and AI, better preparing them for future educational and employment opportunities.
- UF will become the site of the latest NVIDIA AI Technology Center, where UF Graduate Fellows and NVIDIA employees will work together to advance AI.
- NVIDIA solution architects and product engineers will partner with UF on the installation, operation and optimization of the NVIDIA-based supercomputing resources on campus, including the latest AI software applications.
The UF project is being funded through a $25 million donation from UF alumnus and Nvidia co-founder Chris Malachowsky, along with $25 million in hardware, software, services and training from Nvidia. UF also pledged $20 million of its own money.
“I’m really hoping that this becomes a blueprint for public-private investment around the country,” Malachowsky said.
This gives the university the tools to apply AI across a multitude of areas to address major challenges such as rising seas, aging populations, data security, personalized medicine, urban transportation and food insecurity. UF expects to create 30,000 AI-enabled graduates by 2030. “Our vision is to become the nation’s first AI university,” said University of Florida President Kent Fuchs.
