The University at Albany's Artificial Intelligence Supercomputing Initiative is among the education projects funded in the New York state budget. The project, estimated to cost $75 million, will expand the artificial intelligence resources available in the area. Once completed, the university expects all students, no matter their major, to use AI in their daily studies. "We think with this cluster coming here and this focus in AI, we will be teaching our undergraduate students AI from the first year," said Kesh Kesavadas, vice president for research and economic development at UAlbany. The idea is for students in all programs to get a chance to work with artificial intelligence, whether it be cybersecurity or music composition, and to give them an opportunity that has not been available.

Now, a group of researchers at the University at Albany would like New Yorkers to think of winter snow storms when they hear the term AI. The school's Atmospheric Sciences Research Center just received a $2.4 million, five-year National Science Foundation grant to explore and develop ways that AI can better track and predict winter storms. The overall $20 million project, funded by the National Science Foundation, includes a total of seven schools and is titled the Institute for Research on Trustworthy AI in Weather, Climate and Coastal Oceanography. In short, they want to harness AI in which computer programs can "teach" themselves to make calculations and predictions based on the feedback or additional information that is constantly being fed to them. The idea is to be able to tailor winter weather predictions to people who can make immediate use of them, particularly transportation and utility services, said Chris Thorncroft, who directs UAlbany's atmospheric center and is co-leading the winter research.