This back-to-school season, many universities are powering on brand new AI supercomputers. Researchers and students working in fields from basic science to liberal arts can't wait to log on.
They would like to use it right now, said James Wilgenbusch, director of research computing at the University of Minnesota, speaking of Agate, an accelerated supercomputer Hewlett Packard Enterprise is building.
It's one of at least eight new academic systems lighting up around the world - four in America's heartland and two in the U.K.
Before the semester's end, Agate will deliver seven petaflops of umph. It will crunch through research from socio-economic trends to celestial objects - it really will serve the full gamut, he said of the system to be housed at the Minnesota Supercomputing Institute (MSI) that will link 265 NVIDIA A100 Tensor Core GPUs on an NVIDIA HDR 200Gb/s InfiniBand network.
Agate will serve about 4,500 users, working under a thousand principal investigators who since January have already run a whopping 138,612 GPU-accelerated jobs on MSI's existing systems.
Getting fired up: The Agate supercomputer in Chippewa Falls undergoes burn-in testing. (Picture courtesy HPE) We're seeing annual user growth, the greatest amount of it in life sciences and liberal arts - fields like geology, history, poli-sci, marketing - anywhere people have vast quantities of unstructured data and they're attempting to make sense of it, he said.
AI Supercomputer Helps Fight COVID Demonstrating the power of accelerated computing, the Minnesota Department of Health reserved a portion of MSI's system in its fight against COVID-19. It's sequencing genomes for contract tracing and to track variants of the coronavirus.
Collaborations like this make the role of universities in innovation and life saving more obvious to the public, said Wilgenbusch, pointing to articles in a Minneapolis newspaper.
Virtual GPUs Power Indiana Classrooms Some 600 miles southeast, Indiana University (IU) is standing up two AI supercomputers packing a total of 616 A100 GPUs.
Big Red 200, built by Hewlett Packard Enterprise, will serve the nine IU campuses. Jetstream-2, built by Dell Technologies, will power work at several partner institutions from Cornell to the University of Hawaii.
Tapping the A100's ability to offer fractions of a processor, Jetstream-2 will host classes with hundreds of students, each using a slice of a GPU's performance to learn popular AI skills like image classification. One IU researcher presented a paper last November benchmarking the virtual GPU capability.
Now whole classrooms can be trained in one go, so more people get access, said Winona Snapp-Childs, chief operating officer of IU's Pervasive Technology Institute and leader of an AI-for-everyone initiative.
A Vision of Ubiquitous AI More than 2,500 students use IU's current GPU-accelerated systems. They ran more than 40 percent of the work for the university's record $1 billion of research contracts and grants spread across 178 departments last year.
Funding agencies realize the importance of machine learning in academic fields across the spectrum, said Snapp-Childs.
AI and accelerated computing help push the boundaries of science, and I can imagine they will come to handle half of our research over the next 5 to 10 years as these techniques become ubiquitous and imperative for research, she added.
The work spans a spectrum that can set your head spinning. Researchers are tapping AI for everything from tracking down COVID misinformation on social networks to studying the genome of rice to improve harvests.
Delta Pioneers Accessible Supercomputing Next door, the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign is expanding use of accelerated computing with Delta, an AI supercomputer packing more than 800 A100 GPUs.
We will help emerging research areas such as computational archaeology and digital agriculture take advantage of new computing methods and hardware while making advanced systems more usable and accessible to a broad community of researchers, said William Gropp, a principal investigator and NCSA director who oversees Delta.
The system is one way the National Science Foundation is spreading GPU-based computing as a common tool for accelerating research. The work includes an initiative to make Delta and future systems more accessible to people with disabilities.
Florida Spreads the AI Sunshine A thousand miles south, the University of Florida's HiPerGator AI system provides another shining example of accelerated computing.
In a recent article in the Gainesville Sun, provost Joe Glover said the system will spread AI skills much like Henry Ford's first assembly line made cars affordable for Americans. The university aims to add 100 AI-focused faculty to make machine learning ubiquitous across its curriculum with a stated goal of creating 30,000 AI-enabled graduates by 2030.
HiPerGator AI linked a whopping 1,120 A100 GPUs on a HDR 200Gb/s InfiniBand network to take the No. 22 spot in the latest TOP500 list of the world's fastest supercomputers. It was built in just a few weeks thanks to its use of the NVIDIA DGX SuperPOD reference architecture, a recipe for stacking NVIDIA DGX systems in Lego-like style.
Studying Abroad: AI Supercomputing's Far Reach These five AI supercomputers represent just a few peaks in a rising range that crisscrosses the U.S. and Europe.
On the UC Berkeley campus, researchers just turned on Perlmutter, the world's fifth fastest system, packing 6,144 A100 GPUs.
The University of Cambridge debuted CSD3, a cloud-native supercomputer built on Dell EMC PowerEdge, which is now the fastest academic system in the U.K. and hit No. 3 on the Green500 list of the world
Most recent headlines
05/01/2027
Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be ...
01/06/2026
January 6 2026, 05:30 (PST) Dolby Sets the New Standard for Premium Entertainment at CES 2026
Throughout the week, Dolby brings to life the latest innovatio...
02/05/2026
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, t...
01/05/2026
January 5 2026, 18:30 (PST) NBCUniversal's Peacock to Be First Streamer to ...
01/04/2026
January 4 2026, 18:00 (PST) DOLBY AND DOUYIN EMPOWER THE NEXT GENERATON OF CREATORS WITH DOLBY VISION
Douyin Users Can Now Create And Share Videos With Stun...
02/03/2026
NBC Sports selected Imaginary Forces to create the main title sequence for the M...
02/03/2026
The NFL announces the launch of the NFL Draft Innovation Challenge, a new crowds...
02/03/2026
The World Teleport Association (WTA) has named Skyline Communications' DataMiner SatOps solution as a finalist for the 2026 Teleport Technology of the Year ...
02/03/2026
Ventum Tech announces a strategic partnership with Pixotope, a real-time graphic...
02/03/2026
Victory , a free, ad-supported sports streaming service, announces the launch of...
02/03/2026
Global powerhouse Delta Goodrem to represent Australia at this year's Eurovi...
02/03/2026
SBS brings together prominent voices to discuss rising social division and seek ...
02/03/2026
NITV Unveils Wednesday Night Sport Night
Media releases
A Midweek Hub for Blak Sport
Flagship NRL program Over The Black Dot moves to Wednesdays at 9:30pm
...
02/03/2026
Rohde & Schwarz demonstrates FR1-FR3 carrier aggregation, advancing 6G readiness Rohde & Schwarz and Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. have reached another pivotal ...
02/03/2026
MELBOURNE, Fla., March 2, 2026 - L3Harris Technologies (NYSE: LHX) today announc...
02/03/2026
Harvey Norman tops New Zealand's biggest ad spenders as retail leads and telcos and beverages sure Auckland March 3, 2026 - Nielsen's New Zealand'...
02/03/2026
aconnic AG (ISIN: DE000A0LBKW6), Munich, and Arqit Quantum Inc. (Nasdaq: ARQQ, A...
02/03/2026
Advanced Systems Group, LLC (ASG), a technology and services provider for media creatives and content owners, has appointed Jody Boatwright as Chief Strategy Of...
02/03/2026
Lightware, an industry leader in signal management, is reinforcing its commitment to simplifying complex AV environments with the continued evolution of its TPN...
02/03/2026
ZEISS Cinema opens its doors to an exclusive screening, filmmakers Q&A and hands-on showcase of the new ZEISS Aatma lens family on Tuesday, March 10, 6:00-9:00 ...
02/03/2026
To expand the creative potential of the compact Astera QuikBeam, DoPchoice introduces the SNAPBAG Round. The new light-shaping accessory transforms the powerfu...
02/03/2026
Douglas Dubler
On a rooftop in New York City, veteran photographer Douglas Dubler watched the sun's angle shift across the urban landscape, his internal cl...
02/03/2026
ZEISS is expanding its Otus ML lens family with the introduction of the new ZEISS Otus ML 1.4/35. This manual-focus lens is designed for photographers who live ...
02/03/2026
Matthews Studio Equipment now offers the new Dinkum Systems White FlexiMount and Phone Mount Kit, a compact, highly adaptable setup for mobile content creation...
02/03/2026
Luxembourg, February 26, 2026 - SES and Africa Mobile Network (AMN) have expande...
02/03/2026
02 03 2026 - Media release Ausfilm and Screen Australia launch joint UK market initiative
Ausfilm and Screen Australia have announced Partner with Australia (...
02/03/2026
Monday 2 March 2026
Saturday Night Live UK announces writing team
L-R: Jonno Johnson; Charlie Skelton; Celya AB; Omar Badawy; Gr inne Maguire; Laura Claxton; ...
02/03/2026
Back to All News
Netflix Unveils the Trailer for 53 Sundays, the New Film by Cesc Gay
Entertainment
02 March 2026
GlobalSpain
Link copied to clipboard
Dis...
28/02/2026
With two features seen in Formula 1 coverage, the broadcaster aims to bring view...
28/02/2026
Secretary of War Pete Hegseth addresses a crowd of approximately 1,500 L3Harris employees in Camden, Arkansas, as part of his Arsenal of Freedom tour....
28/02/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
28/02/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
28/02/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
28/02/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
28/02/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
28/02/2026
Berklee Presents Mambo Mania: Eguie Castrillo and the Berklee All-Stars Big Band...
28/02/2026
Berklee Announces Two New Summer Programs in Los Angeles The Berklee Music Business Program and Electronic Music Production and Sound Design Workshop bring imme...
28/02/2026
AI-RAN is moving from lab to field, showing that a software-defined approach is ...
28/02/2026
Autonomous networks - intelligent, self-managing telecommunications operations -...
28/02/2026
Back to All News
Final Trailer for BEASTARS Final Season Part 2' Roars Tow...
28/02/2026
New way to intentionally discover molecular glues could expand drug discovery Scripps Research scientists and colleagues show how drugs that eliminate certain d...
27/02/2026
The E.W. Scripps Company names Oliver Gray as Vice President, Network Sports and...
27/02/2026
The Gotham Sports App, the exclusive direct-to-consumer streaming home of MSG Networks and the YES Network, is now available for purchase through Prime Video fo...
27/02/2026
ESPN and the Horizon League announce a new multi-year, multi-platform media rights agreement, continuing a 38-year collaboration that began with the 1988 Midwes...
27/02/2026
At the 2026 NAB Show in Las Vegas, NETGEAR will highlight its new switch models and major updates to its Engage Controller software. The company's network d...
27/02/2026
Riedel Communications announces that Fondazione Teatro alla Scala has deployed a...
27/02/2026
Lyuno specializes in media localization, including translation, dubbing, subtitling, and voice-over services for a wide array of entertainment content. The comp...
27/02/2026
Chyron Weather 2.3, the latest edition of Chyron's weather visualization suite for broadcasters and meteorologists, recently launched.
The release includes...
27/02/2026
Telestream, which concentrates in media workflow technologies, announces expanded practical AI enhancements across its Vantage, Vantage Cloud, EDC, Stanza, and ...
This back-to-school season, many universities are powering on brand new AI supercomputers. Researchers and students working in fields from basic science to liberal arts can't wait to log on.
