NSF Awards Georgia Tech $20 Million to Build AI-Focused Supercomputer
The National Science Foundation (NSF) has granted $20 million to the Georgia Institute of Technology to develop a new supercomputer named Nexus. This system is designed to boost the nation's artificial intelligence capabilities and accelerate scientific discovery across multiple disciplines.
Nexus will serve as a crucial resource for the science and engineering research community. It will operate as both an independent platform and a gateway to other national computing resources, significantly speeding up AI-driven research efforts.
What Nexus Brings to the Table
- Performing 400 quadrillion operations per second — equivalent to everyone on Earth continuously executing 50 million calculations each second.
- Housing 330 trillion bytes of memory to tackle complex problems and massive datasets.
- Providing 10 quadrillion bytes of flash storage — enough paper to stack 500,000 km high, stretching from Earth to the moon and back one-third of the way.
This computing power will support breakthroughs in diverse scientific fields, promote economic competitiveness, and contribute to advances in human health.
Collaborative Efforts to Advance Science
Georgia Tech will build Nexus in partnership with the National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, which operates some of the nation’s top academic supercomputers. Together, they will create a high-speed network, forming a national research infrastructure accessible to U.S. researchers through NSF-supported programs.
Georgia Tech will manage the supercomputer and allocate up to 10% of its capacity for campus research. Construction is set to begin this year, with completion expected by spring 2026.
Voices from Leadership
"Georgia Tech is proud to be one of the nation’s leading sources of AI talent and technology," said President Ángel Cabrera. "Hosting Nexus will support a new wave of AI-centered innovation nationwide."
Charles Isbell, Chancellor of the University of Illinois and former dean of Georgia Tech’s College of Computing, emphasized the partnership's significance: "Nexus is more than a supercomputer — it’s a symbol of what’s possible when leading institutions work together to advance science."
Vivek Sarkar, Dean of Computing at Georgia Tech, added, "Nexus will help researchers accelerate progress on today’s toughest challenges and open doors to discoveries we haven’t yet imagined."
Implications for the Research Community
The arrival of Nexus will expand opportunities for AI-driven research and innovation. By providing a powerful and accessible computing platform, it will help scientists and engineers address complex questions more efficiently.
Researchers interested in AI and high-performance computing can look forward to applying for NSF support to access Nexus once it becomes operational.
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