Stony Brook joins Empire AI SUNY partnerships to expand access

Stony Brook University will participate in Empire AI SUNY campus partnerships to expand AI research access and education, and will host a paid undergraduate research program this summer.

• Main action: Stony Brook will partner with Farmingdale State College and Suffolk County Community College and launch the “AI Innovation and Diffusion” program: an eight-week undergraduate research experience that will recruit 40 students (20 from each participating campus) to spend eight weeks at Stony Brook, receive mentorship from doctoral students or postdoctoral scholars, and be paid a $5,000 stipend each; the program is scheduled for this summer.
• Background and context: The initiative leverages the Empire AI supercomputer (housed at SUNY Buffalo) as part of Empire AI, a state-led consortium backed by more than $500 million in public and private funding, comprising 10 member universities and research institutions; in May 2025 funding was secured to expand SUNY researcher access and add new members, and Governor Hochul proposed Empire AI Beta in her 2026 State of the State to accelerate performance to 11x scale.