The University of Vermont (UVM) has been awarded $5.5 million from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to support research into AI, underground robotics, and renewable energy.

Of the funding, $2.1 million has been allocated for the upgrade of its IceCore supercomputer at the university’s Vermont Advanced Computing Center.

The current IceCore system consists of a GPU cluster comprising 80 Nvidia Tesla V100 GPUs across 10 nodes, with two nodes equipped with eight Nvidia H100 GPUs and two nodes equipped with four Nvidia A100 GPUs.

The upgrade will see 16 nodes with 64 Nvidia H200s and 16 nodes with four Nvidia H200 GPUs and Intel Xeon 6740E CPUs added to the cluster, alongside 1TB of RAM, 100Gb Ethernet, and InfiniBand connectivity.

The university said the cluster will be upgraded in Fall 2025, and once completed, it will be 100 times faster than its existing systems. The project will be overseen by Chris Danforth from UVM’s College of Engineering and Mathematical Sciences.

The rest of the NSF funding is set to be divided between 11 separate research projects to be overseen by the university’s department of chemistry, department of physics, and department of mechanical engineering, among others.

“Our research office has been working tirelessly to boost grant support for UVM researchers, so it is extremely heartening to see this hard work paying off,” said Kirk Dombrowski, UVM VP for research and economic development. “These NSF awards will enable us to pursue internationally competitive research, which helps us recruit outstanding faculty and students.”

V-GaN Tech Hub awarded $3.4m for new test lab

Also this month, the Advancing Gallium Nitride Tech Hub (V-GaN), of which UVM is a member, was awarded $3.4 million from the Northeast Microelectronics Coalition (NEMC) for the opening of a microelectronics testing laboratory.

Set to be opened by UVM in January 2026, the V-GaN Test and Characterization Lab will provide NEMC and V-GaN member businesses and researchers with advanced testing services for high power and high frequency devices. The NEMC funding will support the infrastructure build-out and operating expenses for the facility, while UVM will provide management and back-office support to the lab.

"Our investment in this lab isn’t just about infrastructure — it’s about enabling scientists and engineers to turn bold ideas into game-changing technologies," said NEMC director Mark Halfman. "This facility represents our commitment to bridging the gap between groundbreaking research and real-world impact."

Established in 2023 and developed in partnership with the University of Vermont, GlobalFoundries, and the state of Vermont, V-GaN was designated as one of the 31 inaugural tech hubs under the Department of Commerce's Economic Development Administration (EDA) Tech Hub program.

GaN is a wide-bandgap material, and as such, can handle higher amounts of power than silicon. This means GaN-based chips can be more efficient and durable than their silicon counterparts, and are becoming more widely used across various industries, particularly for power electronics applications.