Georgia Tech Unveils New AI Makerspace in Collaboration with NVIDIA
Georgia Tech’s College of Engineering has established an artificial intelligence supercomputer hub dedicated exclusively to teaching students. The initiative — the AI Makerspace — is launched in collaboration with NVIDIA. College leaders call it a digital sandbox for students to understand and use AI in the classroom.
Initially focusing on undergraduate students, the AI Makerspace aims to democratize access to computing resources typically reserved for researchers or technology companies. Students will access the cluster online as part of their coursework, deepening their AI skills through hands-on experience. The Makerspace will also better position students after graduation as they work with AI professionals and help shape the technology’s future applications.
“The launch of the AI Makerspace represents another milestone in Georgia Tech’s legacy of innovation and leadership in education,” said Raheem Beyah, dean of the College and Southern Company Chair. “Thanks to NVIDIA’s advanced technology and expertise, our students at all levels have a path to make significant contributions and lead in the rapidly evolving field of AI.”
The first phase of the endeavor is powered by 20 NVIDIA HGX H100 systems, housing 160 NVIDIA H100 Tensor Core GPUs (graphics processing units), one of the most powerful computational accelerators capable of enabling and supporting advanced AI and machine learning efforts. The system is interconnected with an NVIDIA Quantum-2 InfiniBand networking platform, featuring in-network computing.
To put this computational power into perspective, it would take a single NVIDIA H100 GPU one second to come up with a multiplication operation that would take Georgia Tech’s 50,000 students 22 years to achieve.
Undergraduate students currently enrolled in ECE 4252: Fundamentals of Machine Learning (FunML) are accessing the AI Makerspace to learn, experiment, prototype, and showcase their AI-driven ideas at scale. This fall, the AI Makerspace will be incorporated into the curriculum of all eight engineering schools.
