Saying the state needs a plan for the transformative technological change ahead, Gov. Mikie Sherrill announced Tuesday the launch of the New Jersey Supercomputer Initiative.
The public-private partnership is backed by more than $125 million, including a $75 million personal gift from Chris Malachowsky, a co-founder of NVIDIA who grew up in Monmouth County, and his wife, Melody.
The project also is funded by a $25 million investment from Somerset County-based SHI International and $25 million from the state, routed through the New Jersey Economic Development Authority and appropriated in the FY2026 budget.
The partnership includes all eight of the state’s research universities: Kean, Montclair State, NJIT, Princeton, Rowan, Rutgers, Seton Hall and Stevens — as well as the NJ Council of County Colleges.
Sherrill, speaking in New Brunswick at Portal Innovations’ New Jersey Innovation Hub inside the HELIX, said the idea is simple: Bigger machines allow bigger questions.
“In research, computing power acts like a currency,” she said. “There’s a ceiling on the types of questions that scientists can afford to take on with their machines. The supercomputer will raise that ceiling, so researchers can ask and answer more complicated problems.”
The initiative is especially important to higher ed, as it is expected to double the supercomputing capacity available across all of the state’s research universities and dramatically increase capacity on the most advanced hardware.
Each of the eight initially announced universities plans to contribute annually, and pathways for more colleges to join will be announced in 2027. The initiative will be administered starting that year by NJSCI, an independent nonprofit.
Some of the computing power is reserved for coursework and research capstones. The state is also building curricula, training programs and apprenticeships in AI, data science and advanced computing.
Dozens of projects are under review, according to the state, including flood modeling, earlier cancer detection, drug development and making large language models safer.
Malachowsky credited former Gov. Phil Murphy, whose visits to California got the ball rolling and who introduced him to Sherrill when she was governor-elect. Malachowsky said the plan started with one question.
“When I first met with the universities here, I asked a simple question: What would you do with a supercomputer?” he said.
Malachowsky has asked the question before.
HiPerGator, the machine he and his wife gave the University of Florida, has attracted $800 million in research grants, eight times its initial investment, according to Sherrill. Malachowsky said his broader goal is for all 50 states to have computing resources like this one.
Princeton President Christopher Eisgruber said the initiative complements the NJ AI Hub, which Princeton launched with the NJEDA, Microsoft and CoreWeave in March 2025.
“Access to advanced computing infrastructure is an essential difference maker for our collective ability to best harness the benefits and best avoid the risks of technology that was until recently the stuff of science fiction,” he said.
Sherrill compared the effort to Bell Labs, which drew thousands of scientists and engineers to New Jersey, many of whom went on to launch startups.
“This supercomputer will help to do the same, positioning New Jersey as the place where innovators want to work and high-potential companies want to invest,” she said.
Malachowsky, who graduated from Ocean Township High School 50 years ago, said the gift — and the initiative — is personal.
“I was born and raised here in New Jersey,” he said. “The education and upbringing I received has opened the doors and set me on the path that allowed me to eventually co-found NVIDIA.”
