Dear colleagues,
As you know, Empire AI is a consortium of nine New York State institutions that, with support from New York State and private philanthropy, oversees a shared computing facility to promote responsible research and development, including the advancement of the ethical and public-interest uses of artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing (HPC) technologies in New York.
We are now soliciting proposals to use the second instance of Empire AI, called Beta, described here, which includes an upgrade of the original Empire AI Alpha capability. Beta will be up to ∼7x faster than Alpha on machine learning training and up to ∼20x on inference. Its DGX GB200 NVL72 SuperPOD technology tightly integrates the GPUs, for example, enabling efficient training of multi-trillion parameter models. We anticipate that Beta will be operational by December 2025 and we are encouraging users to take advantage of it.
The request for proposals (RFP) is now open from August 1 to September 17, 2025 (midnight ET). We encourage you to use this resource.
- To apply, please complete this form, which contains additional information about Alpha and Beta hardware and about resource allocation expressed in terms of service units. Be sure to click “Submit” at the bottom of the form to complete your application.
- Proposals must demonstrate how the project will leverage the Empire AI resources effectively as well as the potential scientific outcomes of the proposed research. The research team is expected to have significant computing experience and should preferably prototype the proposed work in BlueHive or a similar facility before submitting their Empire AI proposal. Priority will be given to proposals that include a plan for securing external funding to support work on Empire AI, and to proposals aligned with current or anticipated funded research projects. Please include this information briefly in the “Scientific project description” area.
- University of Rochester proposals submitted in response to this call will be reviewed by an internal committee appointed by the Office of the Vice President for Research.
This solicitation is exclusively open only to faculty and faculty-led research groups in the following academic institutions as systems and campuses located in New York State: CUNY City University of New York, Columbia University, Cornell University, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York University, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Rochester Institute of Technology, SUNY, and University of Rochester. Allocations made as a result of this solicitation will commence in December 2025 and expire at the end of November 2026.
Use of Empire AI resources is governed by these terms and conditions.
Questions concerning this application, the Alpha/Beta resources, allocations, etc., should be directed to Brendan Mort (brendan.mort@rochester.edu), University of Rochester’s Empire AI technical point of contact. If he cannot assist, please submit a ticket with your question via email to support@empireai.edu.
Warm regards,
Steve Dewhurst, PhD
Vice President for Research
University of Rochester