IBM and The Grainger College of Engineering at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign plan to launch a large-scale collaboration designed to increase access to technology education and skill development, and to combine the strengths of academia and the industrial sector to spur breakthroughs in emerging areas of technology. Specifically, the planned collaboration will focus on the rapidly growing areas of hybrid cloud and AI, quantum information science and technology, accelerated materials discovery, and sustainability to accelerate the discovery of solutions to complex global challenges.
This planned collaboration will be centered in the creation of the new IBM-Illinois Discovery Accelerator Institute, housed within The Grainger College of Engineering at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC). It will be funded by a ten-year planned research investment from IBM and UIUC, complemented by a major new building project which will house research activities in quantum information, high-performance computing, hybrid cloud and networked environments with support from the State of Illinois, bringing total investments to more than $200 million. The newly planned Discovery Accelerator Institute will feature deep collaborations to develop communities of discovery across IBM, Grainger Engineering and the UIUC campus; research funding for UIUC in hybrid cloud, quantum information, materials, and sustainability; hiring of additional faculty and talent at UIUC; and a new facility for research in computing and quantum technologies at UIUC.