10.16.23 - Governor Hochul Announces $20 Million Public-Private Investment to Advance Artificial Intelligence Goals
' Governor Kathy Hochul today announced a $20 million investment and collaboration between University at Albany and IBM to advance artificial intelligence goals, and a SUNY AI Research Group. Under the Governor’s direction, New York State is leading in AI research and development. Significant investment has helped attract companies to New York's state-of-the-art research centers and create jobs.
“New Yorkers have a constant ambition to place ourselves at the vanguard of what’s driving change and offer opportunities no one else can,” Governor Hochul said. “AI is fundamentally changing the world we live in, and New York doesn’t just want to get in at the ground floor—we want to set the standard in AI development. With this investment and the creation of the SUNY AI Research Group, we are centering AI within education so we can incubate and foster a brilliant future for New York.”
SUNY Chancellor John B. King, Jr. said, “SUNY is at the forefront of the wave of development and application of artificial intelligence into higher education and the workforce through research and scholarship, and is proud of our role in supporting Governor Hochul’s vision for leading the nation on AI. SUNY’s AI Research Group brings together top experts and practitioners to cement SUNY as a global leader in AI-focused education, research, and workforce development. I would like to thank Governor Hochul and the New York State Legislature for their ongoing investment in AI and, in particular, their investment in the first-ever New York State endowment matching fund, which will spur significant research, including into AI, at our university centers.”
The UAlbany and IBM $20 million collaboration forms the Center for Emerging Artificial Intelligence Systems (CEAIS), which will power new AI research projects with the help of advanced cloud computing and emerging hardware out of the IBM Research AI Hardware Center. The announcement was made from SUNY’s inaugural AI Symposium at UAlbany.
The center is the next evolution in UAlbany’s AI Plus initiative, which is integrating teaching and learning about AI across the university’s research and academic enterprise, from data science and semiconductor design to philosophy and the arts.
University at Albany President Havidán Rodríguez said, “Researchers across UAlbany’s nine schools and colleges are employing artificial intelligence to power new discoveries about our world, and we are committed to giving them the best tools to develop critical new knowledge and advance the state of the art in their fields. The Center for Emerging Artificial Intelligence Systems will significantly expand UAlbany researchers’ access to AI supercomputing resources and make our University a leading academic test bed for some of the latest computing technology developed by IBM.” '