NJIT, Seton Hall and Rutgers Join a $125 Million New Jersey Supercomputer Initiative
Newark's NJIT and Seton Hall are among the eight founding research partners in a shared supercomputer backed by $25 million from the state, a $75 million private gift and $25 million from SHI International.
New Jersey will build a shared supercomputer for its research universities under an initiative backed by more than $125 million in public and private investment, Gov. Mikie Sherrill announced on Oct. 20 at the New Jersey Innovation Hub in New Brunswick, according to ROI-NJ and NJBIZ reporting on the launch read this cycle.
The founding partners are the state's eight research institutions — Kean University, Montclair State University, the New Jersey Institute of Technology, Princeton University, Rowan University, Rutgers University, Seton Hall University and Stevens Institute of Technology — along with the New Jersey Council of County Colleges, according to the announcement. NJIT and Rutgers both have major campuses in Newark, and Seton Hall's law school is in Newark.
The funding combines a $75 million personal gift from NVIDIA co-founder Chris Malachowsky and his wife, Melody, a $25 million investment from SHI International, which will design, host and operate the computing environment in its New Jersey facilities, and $25 million from the state through the New Jersey Economic Development Authority, appropriated in the fiscal 2026 budget, according to the reporting.
In its announcement about joining the initiative, NJIT described flood research combining drone mapping, hydraulic models and AI-assisted monitoring, and opportunities for students to train and run AI models at a scale beyond laptops or free cloud services, according to the initiative's published materials. The system is expected to double the aggregate supercomputing capacity available across New Jersey's research universities — the initiative's own projection — and an independent nonprofit, NJSCI, is scheduled to administer it beginning in 2027, with an early 2027 target for the system to go live.
