AssetID: 55180268
Headline: RAW VIDEO: $33 million supercomputer among world's fastest unveiled in Florida
Caption: The University of Florida has unveiled the world of higher education’s fastest supercomputer on Tuesday (14October2025). Elias G. Eldayrie, senior vice president and chief information officer, welcomed more than 125 guests to the ceremony, including representatives from UF’s Board of Trustees and cabinet, NVIDIA and U.S. Representative Kat Cammack. “As Florida’s flagship university, UF has embraced a bold and audacious vision: to be the nation’s AI university. Our commitment to AI is not just promoting economic growth across the state and giving our students the tools they need to be America’s next generation of leaders,” said UF Board of Trustees Chair Mori Hosseini. “It’s also protecting lives, preserving resources, feeding the world, improving health outcomes, and making Florida stronger, safer and better prepared for tomorrow.” HiPerGator representatives gave tours of the updated machine, including a replacement of the NVIDIA DGX A100 “Ampere” SuperPOD from 2020 with a DGX B200 “Blackwell” SuperPOD, which measures 30 times faster than the previous HiPerGator generation. The $33 million computer has been ranked No. 3 in the world for speed (how quickly it responds to an AI question) and No. 4 for efficiency (how many AI questions it can handle at once), according to the standard MLCommons benchmark. “Every part of this university is a playground for AI,” said UF Interim President Donald W. Landry. “This land-grant institution has succeeded in what we want to see across the state… The combination of vision, partnership and dedication leads us to this moment.” More than 60% of UF’s $1.33 billion annual budget for research goes toward projects that rely on HiPerGator. One service enabled by HiPerGator is NaviGator AI, which offers UF faculty, students and staff access to more than 40 large language models to experiment with generative AI. “What this group of folks and leadership has done represents a model that is going to transform the nation,” UF alumnus and NVIDIA cofounder Chris Malachowsky, a key partner and donor in UF’s sweeping initiative to lead the country in creating the next AI workforce. “This is a testament to the machine to be exploited and taken advantage of,” Malachowsky added. “Take it and run. It’s bold and powerful and impactful.”
Keywords: University of Florida,hipergator,computing,ai,artificial intelligence
PersonInImage: The HiperGator supercomputer.