How Nvidia co-founder plans to turn Hudson Valley into a tech powerhouse greater than Silicon Valley
NY Post
A co-founder of chip maker Nvidia is bankrolling a futuristic quantum computer system at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute – and wants to turn New York’s Hudson Valley into a tech powerhouse.
Curtis Priem, 64, donated more than $75 million so that the Albany-area college could obtain the IBM-made computer — the first such device on a university campus anywhere in the world, the Wall Street Journal reported.
The former tech executive and RPI alum said his goal is to establish the area around the school, based in Troy, into a hub of talent and business as quantum computing becomes more mainstream in the years ahead.
“We’ve renamed Hudson Valley as Quantum Valley,” Priem told the Journal. “It’s up to New York whether they want to become Silicon State — not just a valley.”
The burgeoning technology uses subatomic quantum bits, or “qubits,” to process data much faster than conventional binary computers. The devices are expected to play a key role in the development of advanced AI systems.
Priem will reportedly fund the whopping $15 million per year required to rent the computer, which is kept in a building that used to be a chapel on RPI’s campus.
