Morehouse College to House Landmark Supercomputer in NationalScience Foundation’s Groundbreaking $457 Million Research Project

Morehouse College has received a prestigious grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to participate in a $457 million project to build one of the most powerful academic supercomputers in the southeast. This historic investment in higher education cyberinfrastructure will elevate Morehouse’s ability to provide unprecedented access to world-class computational resources for its students, faculty, and HBCUs nationwide.

The Morehouse Center for Broadening Participation in Computing has received $5 million of the NSF grant to start construction on a site that will house the cutting-edge supercomputer, Horizon, part of the NSF’s Leadership-Class Computing Facility (LCCF). The supercomputer will push the boundaries of artificial intelligence, providing greater access to areas such as climate modeling, machine learning, and biomedical research.

The computing project is being led by the Texas Advanced Computing Center at the University of Texas at Austin. As a primary partner in the LCCF project, Morehouse will play a pivotal role in the deployment of Horizon. In addition to housing the system, Morehouse will serve as a national epicenter for programmatic support, leading free initiatives such as a summer enrichment program for middle and high school boys, a postbaccalaureate program in artificial intelligence, and three weeklong faculty accelerators in Punta Cana, Dominican Republic, focused on research, teaching, and grant proposal writing.

"Morehouse College is honored to partner with the NSF and the University of Texas at Austin on this transformative project,” said Dr. F. DuBois Bowman, 13th President of Morehouse College. “By hosting one of the Southeast’s most powerful academic supercomputers, we are providing HBCUs with unprecedented computational power to explore bold ideas, accelerate discovery, and unleash new frontiers of creativity and innovation. This investment positions our students and faculty to help shape the future of science, technology, and global problem-solving.”

“This contribution cements Morehouse’s place as the undisputed HBCU leader in artificial intelligence,” says Dr. Kinnis Gosha, Principal Investigator of the grant and Hortinius I. Chenault Endowed Professor and Chair of Computer Science. “As a national resource provider, we will empower other HBCUs and non-research-intensive institutions to contribute to growing their research capacity and enhancing student learning.”

The NSF partnership underscores Morehouse College’s commitment to academic rigor and its growing influence as a leader in global STEM research. It reinforces the College’s position as a champion for equity in the technological landscape, a field with a workforce that is still lacking diversity. According to national labor statistics, some 62 percent of tech jobs are held by White Americans.

Morehouse will share its research and project progress at the Integrating Supercomputing-Powered Instruction, Research, and Entrepreneurship (InSPIRE) Workshop, which is held annually in Austin, Texas. The conference offers support to faculty and students using AI research in teaching and entrepreneurial endeavors.

For more information on Morehouse’s role in the NSF Leadership-Class Computing Facility or other AI initiatives offered by the Morehouse Center for Broadening Participation in Computing, please visit https://morehouse.edu/academics/centers-and-institutes/cbpc/.