National Science Foundation

Georgia Tech to Build $20M National AI Supercomputer

admin — Wed, 16 Jul 2025 18:58:41 +0000

Georgia Tech to Build $20M National AI Supercomputer admin Wed, 07/16/2025 - 14:58

The National Science Foundation (NSF) has awarded Georgia Tech and its partners $20 million to build a powerful new supercomputer that will use artificial intelligence (AI) to accelerate scientific breakthroughs.

Called Nexus, the system will be one of the most advanced AI-focused research tools in the U.S. Nexus will help scientists tackle urgent challenges such as developing new medicines, advancing clean energy, understanding how the brain works, and driving manufacturing innovations.

“Georgia Tech is proud to be one of the nation’s leading sources of the AI talent and technologies that are powering a revolution in our economy,” said Ángel Cabrera, president of Georgia Tech. “It’s fitting we’ve been selected to host this new supercomputer, which will support a new wave of AI-centered innovation across the nation. We’re grateful to the NSF, and we are excited to get to work.”

Designed from the ground up for AI, Nexus will give researchers across the country access to advanced computing tools through a simple, user-friendly interface. It will support work in many fields, including climate science, health, aerospace, and robotics.

“The Nexus system's novel approach combining support for persistent scientific services with more traditional high-performance computing will enable new science and AI workflows that will accelerate the time to scientific discovery,” said Katie Antypas, National Science Foundation director of the Office of Advanced Cyberinfrastructure. “We look forward to adding Nexus to NSF's portfolio of advanced computing capabilities for the research community.”

Nexus Supercomputer — In Simple Terms

Built for the future of science: Nexus is designed to power the most demanding AI research — from curing diseases, to understanding how the brain works, to engineering quantum materials.

Blazing fast: Nexus can crank out over 400 quadrillion operations per second — the equivalent of everyone in the world continuously performing 50 million calculations every second.

Massive brain plus memory: Nexus combines the power of AI and high-performance computing with 330 trillion bytes of memory to handle complex problems and giant datasets.

Storage: Nexus will feature 10 quadrillion bytes of flash storage, equivalent to about 10 billion reams of paper. Stacked, that’s a column reaching 500,000 km high — enough to stretch from Earth to the moon and a third of the way back.

Supercharged connections: Nexus will have lightning-fast connections to move data almost instantaneously, so researchers do not waste time waiting.

Open to U.S. researchers: Scientists from any U.S. institution can apply to use Nexus.

Why Now?

AI is rapidly changing how science is investigated. Researchers use AI to analyze massive datasets, model complex systems, and test ideas faster than ever before. But these tools require powerful computing resources that — until now — have been inaccessible to many institutions.

This is where Nexus comes in. It will make state-of-the-art AI infrastructure available to scientists all across the country, not just those at top tech hubs.

“This supercomputer will help level the playing field,” said Suresh Marru, principal investigator of the Nexus project and director of Georgia Tech’s new Center for AI in Science and Engineering (ARTISAN). “It’s designed to make powerful AI tools easier to use and available to more researchers in more places.”

Srinivas Aluru, Regents’ Professor and senior associate dean in the College of Computing, said, “With Nexus, Georgia Tech joins the league of academic supercomputing centers. This is the culmination of years of planning, including building the state-of-the-art CODA data center and Nexus’ precursor supercomputer project, HIVE."

Like Nexus, HIVE was supported by NSF funding. Both Nexus and HIVE are supported by a partnership between Georgia Tech’s research and information technology units.

A National Collaboration

Georgia Tech is building Nexus in partnership with the National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, which runs several of the country’s top academic supercomputers. The two institutions will link their systems through a new high-speed network, creating a national research infrastructure.

“Nexus is more than a supercomputer — it’s a symbol of what’s possible when leading institutions work together to advance science,” said Charles Isbell, chancellor of the University of Illinois and former dean of Georgia Tech’s College of Computing. “I'm proud that my two academic homes have partnered on this project that will move science, and society, forward.”

What’s Next

Georgia Tech will begin building Nexus this year, with its expected completion in spring 2026. Once Nexus is finished, researchers can apply for access through an NSF review process. Georgia Tech will manage the system, provide support, and reserve up to 10% of its capacity for its own campus research.

“This is a big step for Georgia Tech and for the scientific community,” said Vivek Sarkar, the John P. Imlay Dean of Computing. “Nexus will help researchers make faster progress on today’s toughest problems — and open the door to discoveries we haven’t even imagined yet.”

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Summary sentence

Summary

The National Science Foundation has awarded Georgia Tech and its partners $20 million to build a powerful new supercomputer that will use artificial intelligence to accelerate scientific breakthroughs. Called Nexus, the system will be one of the most advanced, AI-focused research tools in the U.S. Nexus will help scientists tackle urgent challenges such as developing new medicines, advancing clean energy, understanding how the brain works, and driving manufacturing innovations.

Dateline

Tue, 07/15/2025 - 12:00

media@gatech.edu

Contact

Siobhan Rodriguez
Senior Media Relations Representative
Institute Communications

Associated importer

Keywords

National Science Foundation

NSF

Georgia Tech

supercomputer

Nexus

artificial intelligence

scientific breakthroughs

hpc

clean energy

brain research

medicine development

manufacturing innovation

AI infrastructure

scientific discovery

persistent scientific services

quantum materials

climate science

health research

aerospace

robotics

flash storage

data transfer

U.S. researchers

AI workflows

ARTISAN

Coda Data Center

HIVE supercomputer

NCSA

University of Illinois

national collaboration

tech partnerships

research support

AI talent

scientific community

research access

AI tools

AI-centered innovation

go-researchnews

go-ai

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Science and Technology

Georgia Tech to Build $20M National AI Supercomputer

admin — Tue, 15 Jul 2025 14:11:41 +0000

Georgia Tech to Build $20M National AI Supercomputer admin Tue, 07/15/2025 - 10:11

Nexus Supercomputer — In Simple Terms

Built for the future of science: Nexus is designed to power the most demanding AI research — from curing diseases, to understanding how the brain works, to engineering quantum materials.

Blazing fast: Nexus can crank out over 400 quadrillion operations per second — the equivalent of everyone in the world continuously performing 50 million calculations every second.

Massive brain plus memory: Nexus combines the power of AI and high-performance computing with 330 trillion bytes of memory to handle complex problems and giant datasets.

Storage: Nexus will feature 10 quadrillion bytes of flash storage, equivalent to about 10 billion reams of paper. Stacked, that’s a column reaching 500,000 km high — enough to stretch from Earth to the moon and a third of the way back.

Supercharged connections: Nexus will have lightning-fast connections to move data almost instantaneously, so researchers do not waste time waiting.

Open to U.S. researchers: Scientists from any U.S. institution can apply to use Nexus.

Why Now?

This is where Nexus comes in. It will make state-of-the-art AI infrastructure available to scientists all across the country, not just those at top tech hubs.

Like Nexus, HIVE was supported by NSF funding. Both Nexus and HIVE are supported by a partnership between Georgia Tech’s research and information technology units.

A National Collaboration

What’s Next

Summary sentence

Summary

Dateline

Tue, 07/15/2025 - 12:00

media@gatech.edu

Contact

Siobhan Rodriguez
Senior Media Relations Representative
Institute Communications

Associated importer

Keywords

National Science Foundation

NSF

Georgia Tech

supercomputer

Nexus

artificial intelligence

scientific breakthroughs

hpc

clean energy

brain research

medicine development

manufacturing innovation

AI infrastructure

scientific discovery

persistent scientific services

quantum materials

climate science

health research

aerospace

robotics

flash storage

data transfer

U.S. researchers

AI workflows

ARTISAN

Coda Data Center

HIVE supercomputer

NCSA

University of Illinois

national collaboration

tech partnerships

research support

AI talent

scientific community

research access

AI tools

AI-centered innovation

go-researchnews

go-ai

News room topics

Campus and Community

Science and Technology

Mercury ID

683137

Source updated

Tue, 07/15/2025 - 10:10

Brook Byers Professor Weissburg Wins $3M Grant to Bring Biologically Inspired Design to High Schools

admin — Wed, 18 Jun 2025 15:11:41 +0000

Brook Byers Professor Weissburg Wins $3M Grant to Bring Biologically Inspired Design to High Schools admin Wed, 06/18/2025 - 11:11

The way a ladybug folds its wings can help aerospace engineers design more compact satellites. Studying how ants dig tunnels could help us create our own tunnels more efficiently.

The idea of using nature’s examples to develop products and designs that benefit society is the cornerstone of a new project at Georgia Tech that aims to get more high school students interested in engineering.

Funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), the $3 million effort will put high school engineering teachers in research labs at Georgia Tech for five weeks. The teachers will be embedded with engineers and scientists, working at the forefront of what’s called biologically inspired design, and creating a curriculum for the teachers to use in their classrooms.

“Lots of people think animals and what they do is insanely cool — and the internet agrees — which means we can engage interest in engineering by making a link to biology as a way to solve engineering challenges,” said Marc Weissburg, project leader and professor in the School of Biological Sciences. “The act of trying to see how an animal might help find a solution to a problem is a very creative process. It challenges the notion that engineering is boring. High school engineering experiences vary widely, but they generally do not include the most cutting-edge topics, like bio-inspired design, which gets people really excited,” he said.

For the next four years, Weissburg will collaborate with researchers Meltem Alemdar, Michael Helms, Roxanne Moore and Michael Ryan at Georgia Tech’s Center for Education Integrating Science, Mathematics and Computing. They’ll create and assess units for 10th, 11th and 12th graders that explore bio-inspired design in the context of problems that are relatable to teenagers.

In particular, the researchers see their approach as a way to reach girls, who may not have considered engineering as a potential career. Weissburg pointed to data from the Center for Digital Education that showed 24% of male high school students expressed interest in engineering. For young women, the number was just 11%.

“Too often, engineering is depicted as applied math and science, which completely neglects how human-centered engineering is,” said Weissburg, who also co-directs the Center for Biologically Inspired Design at Georgia Tech and is a Brook Byers Professor.

The project will generate a curriculum with design and build exercises, background materials for teachers, examples to spark discussion, tests, and other resources that can be used by teachers across the country. Researchers will examine how well the curriculum engages students, particularly those from groups underrepresented in engineering.

“States have different standards, and teacher goals and classes have to be responsive to their unique student audience,” Weissburg said. “Our series of resources, all of which will be online, will allow teachers to easily slot in material that fits for them. It will allow them to talk to us and each other about best practices.”

The research team has partnered with Gwinnett County Public Schools to identify the first group of teachers they’ll invite to participate. Weissburg said that will happen in late Spring 2020.

“Bio-inspired engineering is a unique way of thinking, and so we have to help the teachers understand how to encourage this in their students.”

Summary sentence

Four-year project will bring teachers into Georgia Tech labs and create new curriculum materials for them to use in class.

Summary

The way a ladybug folds its wings can help aerospace engineers design more compact satellites. Studying how ants dig tunnels could help us create our own tunnels more efficiently.

Funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), the $3 million effort will put high school engineering teachers in research labs at Georgia Tech for five weeks.

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Georgia Tech to Build $20M National AI Supercomputer

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