The Supercomputer Transforming the University of Florida Into an AI Hub 

Far from the high-profile tech hubs on the West Coast, a college town in north Florida’s swamplands is pushing forward to distinguish itself as an AI research destination.

Last month, the University of Florida’s Board of Trustees approved a $24 million investment to upgrade UF’s supercomputer, HiPerGator. When NVIDIA, the AI computing company that built the machine, delivers the fourth-generation model to campus later this year, it will make Gainesville the home of one of the globe’s fastest supercomputers amid an international AI arms race.

“This investment is doubling down on what we think is a successful model the state and nation need in developing the workforce in artificial intelligence,” said Elias Eldayrie, UF’s chief information officer. “As unique as the technology is, it will be complemented by a unique intellectual environment with scholars from across different disciplines who will use it for research and teaching and learning.”

The new HiPerGator is UF’s latest move in a decade-long campaign to position itself as a leader in computational research and AI education. It secured the first version of HiPerGator in 2013 and came out with a second in 2015. In 2020, UF hired 100 new faculty members focused on AI research, and HiPerGator made building that research workforce easier.

“It helps us to recruit top talent and faculty from around the globe,” Eldayrie said. “Almost all of them said they’d never seen anything like it.”

Faculty have also integrated the use of HiPerGator into dozens of courses at UF and throughout the state’s university system. Additionally, more than 6,000 researchers across the state—faculty at Florida’s other public universities also have access—have used it to support research projects. In 2021, UF partnered with NVIDIA (the company’s co-founder Chris Malachowsky is an alumnus) and unveiled an even more sophisticated version of the supercomputer.

Now, more than 60 percent of the $1.26 billion UF spends on research annually goes toward projects that rely on the HiPerGator, according to the university.

The newest version of the HiPerGator, which is equipped with computing technology that’s not even on the market yet, can execute large-scale AI-driven research in numerous areas, including hydrology, resource extraction, landscape conservation, climate science and cancer treatment, at a much faster speed than the previous version.

Although there are several privately and federally owned supercomputers located in the United States, UF believes HiPerGator was and still is the fastest computer owned by a higher education institution. That sets UF apart from other universities because students and faculty at most other institutions—including at some of the wealthiest, most selective universities in the nation—don’t have such easy access to the latest supercomputer.

“It’s not that it’s not available, it’s that it’s not easily affordable or accessible to most people in the academy,” said Eldayrie, noting that researchers elsewhere often pay to remotely access a supercomputer for a finite time. “There’s no other faculty body that has access to those kinds of resources and the staff to support their research on the premises.”

Dr. Azra Bihorac, senior associate dean for research at UF’s College of Medicine, said her research, which uses generative AI to help train staff in a simulated clinical setting, would be impossible without the power of HiPerGator.

Although the project she’s working on is specific to a Gainesville-area hospital, it’s designed to be easily adaptable and creates “an opportunity for us to serve as a hub for education and training in AI,” she said. “We have not always been considered a tech hub, but I think that’s changing.”

Mark Muro, a senior fellow at Brookings Metro who specializes in the interplay of technology, people and place, said it’s encouraging that HiPerGator is helping Gainesville develop such a strong AI presence given that some of the most powerful computers have historically belonged to a small concentration of private tech companies, such as OpenAI and Meta, in places like the San Francisco Bay Area, New York City and Seattle.

“AI is a powerful driver of innovation, productivity and economic development,” he said, “but if only a few places are actually developing it we’ll see further unevenness across the economy.”

While it’s unusual for a higher education institution to own such powerful computational infrastructure, UF’s investment in HiPerGator is one way to change that trajectory.

“We’re at an early enough stage where the map of superstar domination by a short list of places can still be adjusted and shaped,” Muro said of emerging AI research. “Something like this is the way that a region or state begins to have more purchase in this industry.”