UF is lobbying to receive millions of dollars to be the first Florida university to create a Center for Artificial Intelligence.
The university has lobbied the state legislature since the start of the legislative session, which resumed March 5, to receive funding for the 2019-2020 fiscal year for Center for Artificial Intelligence, said Samantha Sexton, UF’s director of government relations.
The requested funding totals to $7,837,400. About $3.8 million would go toward faculty and research equipment and $4 million for competitive interdisciplinary grants, Sexton said. The funds were requested from the Executive Office of the Governor.
The center would not be a physical building but a feature within the Herbert Wertheim College of Engineering, she said. Sexton described Artificial Intelligence (AI) as a collection of advanced technologies that allow machines to sense, comprehend, act and learn.
“AI is honestly reinventing how businesses run, how to compete, how our economy and industries thrive,” she said. “We would serve as a national leader for the application and commercialization of artificial intelligence.”
The project proposal was submitted on Feb. 4 to the Florida House of Representatives, and UF will know where this project stands at the end of the state’s legislative session on May 3, Sexton said.
Most recently, the project went to the appropriations committee on Friday, March 15.
If the appropriate funds are received, UF can start planning and creating the Center for Artificial Intelligence next year, she said. This may include organizing a new curriculum, hiring new faculty and purchasing equipment.
“We partner with education, research, community, businesses, military, you name it, and grow this industry on behalf of our local communities and the entire state of Florida,” she said.
For Collin Hamilton, a 20-year-old UF mechanical engineering junior, AI is important for students in the STEM field as technology becomes more advanced, he said.
Although Hamilton’s mechanical engineering major does not deal much with AI, he said he enjoys learning about AI outside of his classes. He even considered going into software engineering, which may have had more coursework in AI, but he wanted to be in a more hands-on field, he said.
“I decided sitting at a desk every day wasn’t for me,” he said. “The interest in AI is mainly because I see that going forward. It’s really become a focus point in STEM fields.”
