Nvidia donates supercomputer to US military university

Nvidia and the Naval Postgraduate School (NPS) on Wednesday said that the AI chip leader has donated a supercomputer with its latest chips to a nonprofit linked to the institution.

The NPS is operated by the US Navy and offers masters and doctoral degrees in fields such as computer science and aerospace engineering, among others, ‌with an emphasis ⁠on ⁠their applications in warfare. Nvidia donated a system based on its GB300 “Grace Blackwell” servers, its most advanced AI computers, to the NPS Foundation, a nonprofit connected to the school.

Nvidia and the NPS did not disclose the size of the system, but confirmed it has been installed at the NPS campus in Monterey, California, where Adm. Samuel J. Paparo, commander of US Pacific ⁠Command, and ‌Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang planned to hold an event to announce the system.

While Nvidia’s Blackwell chips are planned for use in ⁠US government supercomputers built by the US Department of Energy, the donation on Wednesday is the first direct use of Nvidia’s most advanced servers by the US military.

“AI will be a backbone of America’s defense,” Huang said in a statement.

Both the US and China are racing to deploy AI for military purposes ranging from developing targeting lists to drone warfare.

“As we modernize our technology, we must also ‌modernize how we educate our leaders,” Adm. Paparo said in a statement. “Access to advanced computing capability means NPS students and faculty understand the opportunities and responsibilities ⁠that come with these technologies.”

One of AI’s strengths is the ability to work through complex, fast-changing problems much faster than traditional computer simulation techniques.

“Initially, we will need to carefully manage demand as we bring this capability online,” Trenton Hancock, chief information officer at NPS, said in a statement. “But what this system really gives us is the ability to explore more complex, real-world problems, especially those that mirror the challenges our operational fleet faces every day.”