Who We Are
Empire AI brings together some of the nation’s leading research institutions and world-class academic researchers to create something no single institution could achieve on its own.
By sharing world-class computing resources, expertise and ideas across institutions and disciplines, Empire AI is creating new opportunities for collaboration and discovery—strengthening New York’s research ecosystem and helping accelerate advances that can benefit people across the state and beyond.
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Our Partners
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Our Mission
Empire AI’s mission is to give New York’s academic researchers the advanced computing resources they need to pursue ambitious AI research in the public interest.
With access to world-class AI infrastructure, researchers can tackle complex challenges in health, climate, infrastructure, advanced manufacturing and other fields, while also exploring the opportunities and challenges presented by AI itself.
In doing so, Empire AI is strengthening New York’s research ecosystem—helping attract and retain leading researchers, train the next generation of scientists and engineers, and build the talent and expertise that will drive discovery and innovation across the state.
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Our History
Empire AI was launched by Governor Kathy Hochul in 2024 as a first-of-its-kind consortium bringing together New York’s leading public and private research institutions, state government and philanthropic partners to build shared AI computing infrastructure for academic research. By pooling resources and expertise, the initiative set out to provide researchers with computing capabilities at a scale that individual universities could not readily build on their own.
In October 2024, Empire AI launched Alpha, the first phase of its high-performance computing system at the University at Buffalo. Made possible through a gift from the Simons Foundation, Alpha quickly became a working research platform, supporting more than 130 projects and hundreds of researchers across Empire AI’s member institutions in fields ranging from health and neuroscience to climate science and advanced manufacturing.
In 2026, Empire AI took a major leap forward with the launch of Beta, a $40 million NVIDIA-powered supercomputer that dramatically expanded the resources available to researchers. Compared with Alpha, Beta provides 11 times the AI training capacity, 40 times the AI inference capability and eight times the data storage. With more than 300 research projects queued to use the system, Beta represents a significant expansion of New York’s capacity for academic AI research and provides computing power typically available only to the largest technology companies.
The phased buildout will culminate with Gamma, Empire AI’s permanent, full-scale computing facility at the University at Buffalo, expected to be completed by the end of 2027. Designed with sustainability as a core priority, the facility will be integrated with UB’s thermal energy network so that heat generated by the computing center can be captured and used to help heat campus buildings.
Together, Alpha, Beta and Gamma represent the evolution of Empire AI from an ambitious public-private-academic partnership into a lasting research infrastructure designed to strengthen New York’s scientific leadership for decades to come.
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FAQ
Empire AI has established New York as the national model for responsible AI technology. It is facilitating statewide innovation, groundbreaking research, and the development of AI technologies. By leveraging the state’s rich academic resources and research institutions, Empire AI is driving innovation in fields like medicine, education, energy, and climate change, all while giving New York’s researchers access to computing resources that are often prohibitively expensive and only available to big tech companies.
The Empire AI consortium includes Columbia University, Cornell University, CUNY, Icahn School of Medicine at Mt. Sinai, New York University, Rochester Institute of Technology, RPI, University of Rochester, SUNY, and the Flatiron Institute.
Right now, access to the computing resources that power AI is prohibitively expensive and difficult to obtain, and big tech companies are cornering the market. By providing access to high-performance computing resources, Empire AI empowers academic institutions to focus on AI’s unique capabilities to solve complex problems, including those presented by AI itself, fostering a statewide ecosystem of innovation. This is the first time this kind of computing power will be in the hands of public and research-focused institutions.
Empire AI will allow us to catalyze research using AI technology and foster new jobs in industries we haven’t yet imagined, creating a new sector of AI-powered businesses in New York. Now that New York is a national leader in AI, we can build a workforce prepared for the future with skills that our economy will rely on – advancing medicine, increasing economic growth, preventing crime, mitigating climate change, and enhancing cybersecurity.
