Departments of AI and Society Grants

Departments of AI and Society Grants is sponsored by State University of New York (SUNY). Funding for eight SUNY campuses to develop departments focusing on AI and society.

New York State gives $5 million to SUNY to research AI Open in Spectrum News App State of Politics Read up on New York politics with our Capital Tonight team. End Zone Podcast Want the latest news on the Buffalo Bills? Listen to our Buffalo End Zone podcast with Andy Young and Kevin Carroll.

Traffic Map Get up-to-date traffic information around the area with our interactive traffic map. WEATHER ALERTS View full list of weather alerts. SUNY ESF is creating a new Center for Artificial Intelligence, Society and the Environment with seed funding.

(Spectrum News 1/Krystal Cole) SUNY schools' AI research to be supported by $5 million from state PUBLISHED 6:55 AM ET May 30, 2025 PUBLISHED 6:55 AM EDT May 30, 2025 New York has allocated $5 million to create departments, centers and institutes focused on artificial intelligence. SUNY ESF is creating a new Center for Artificial Intelligence, Society and the Environment with seed funding.

“I think there's a big question is artificial intelligence for or against sustainability. And I think a center like this offers a way to investigate those different types of questions, as well as the ways that artificial intelligence might bring us closer to nature and also further away from nature,” said Josh Cousins, assistant professor at SUNY ESF.

Mini-grants for faculty and students will allow them to dive into AI and the world around us. “AI is shaping ways that we monitor what's going on in the environment right now. So, water analysis, for example, people are developing methods to try to track early detection of HABs [harmful algal blooms].

So, there's direct connections to New York and the well-being of people here. So, finding better ways to get that technology to do what we want it to is really important,” said Sharon Moran, an associate professor at SUNY ESF. ESF is one of eight SUNY schools to get money supporting the emerging field.

“It's an equivalent in the corporate world of a startup. And that's what's really going on here. We're creating a startup discipline, marrying AI and society, where the faculty get to define what this discipline is going to look like, not only for us as a university, but for the world,” said University at Buffalo Dean of the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Kemper Lewis.

University at Buffalo is creating the Department of AI and Society. The school plans to develop courses and degrees around artificial intelligence. “So, we're going to create very, very unique AI X degrees is what we're calling them.

So, AI plus another discipline where this discipline is now being transformed by the presence and power of AI,” said Lewis. “And it's really a combination of AI plus these other disciplines social sciences, natural sciences, even health sciences, humanities, arts, where AI is having such a dramatic impact on these other disciplines. That emerging discipline where it's actually a convergence of two existing disciplines is brand new.

” UB already launched a computing center last year called Empire AI , which includes the 245th most powerful computer in the world. The other universities getting a slice of the $5 million of funding for AI research are University at Albany, Binghamton University, SUNY Downstate, SUNY Poly, Stony Brook University and Upstate Medical.