A state initiative to make use of artificial intelligence in addressing local weather change, cybersecurity, starvation and different societal challenges started in Buffalo on Friday after a supercomputer was donated by a charitable basis with ties to Lengthy Island, Gov. Kathy Hochul introduced.
The Empire AI Consortium brings collectively researchers from private and non-private universities throughout New York — together with Stony Brook College and Columbia College — to seek out options for large issues. The initiative, with greater than $400 million in authorities and private-sector funding, will likely be based mostly on the College at Buffalo, the governor stated.
Empire AI is working simply six months after being launched by Hochul in her 2024-25 proposed price range due to $7 million in laptop tools from the Simons Basis in Manhattan. The inspiration was began by the late James Harris Simons, founding father of the Renaissance Applied sciences hedge fund in East Setauket, and his spouse, Marilyn.
James Simons died in Could at age 86. He led the arithmetic division at Stony Brook College earlier than beginning Renaissance, which made him a billionaire. The hedge fund pioneered the usage of math after which A.I. to purchase and promote shares.
In a Friday ceremony in Buffalo, Hochul lauded the Simons for the lots of of tens of millions of {dollars} given to Stony Brook College and the couple’s early assist for Empire AI.
“Your willingness to make [Empire AI] occur approach upfront of after we anticipated it might be occurring on the College at Buffalo Major Campus — that is one thing I’ll by no means take with no consideration,” Hochul stated in introducing basis chairwoman Marilyn Simons to the viewers.
David Spergel, basis president, stated it’s supporting the state initiative as a result of it brings collectively researchers and college students “to be the innovators that create the following nice concepts in science and know-how.”
Greater than 100 tasks have been proposed by researchers thus far, state officers instructed Newsday.
The preliminary leaders of Empire AI additionally had been introduced on Friday, with billionaire Tom Secunda, one of many founders of Bloomberg L.P., being named chairman of the board of administrators.
On the ceremony, Hochul stated her dialog a 12 months in the past with Secunda, who was raised in Bethpage, gave delivery to Empire AI.
“He’s the one that precisely one 12 months in the past planted this concept … He laid out the imaginative and prescient for this,” she stated. “His engagement on this has been transformative. It introduced the individuals collectively, who in any other case wouldn’t have coalesced round an concept like this.”
Secunda stated Empire AI supplies supercomputers and different instruments, “often reserved for less than the most important know-how corporations, to our analysis establishments and their groups.” That makes the following scientific breakthrough “that a lot nearer,” he stated.
Robert Harrison, a Stony Brook professor, was appointed interim Empire AI director. He’s the founding director of Stony Brook’s Institute for Superior Computational Science, which started in 2012 with a donation from the Simons.
Harrison hopes “New York State will take the nationwide lead on A.I.-enabled scientific discovery and engineering design,” he stated.
James T. Madore writes about Lengthy Island enterprise information together with the financial system, growth, and the connection between authorities and enterprise. He beforehand served as Albany bureau chief.