Georgia Tech’s ‘AI Makerspace’ preparing students for new world

ATLANTA, Ga. (Atlanta News First) – Deep in the bowels of the CODA building in Midtown lies a monotonous, loud data center that’s at the forefront of a college education.

“This is the largest ‘AI Makerspace’ dedicated completely to students,” said Arijit Raychowdhury.

Raychowdhury is the Steve W. Chaddick School Chair in the Georgia Tech School of Electrical and Computer Engineering. He calls the new makerspace “a digital sandbox.”

“This is one of those things that’s going to be like electricity,” Raychowdhury said. “It’s going to be everywhere.”

Most people think of artificial intelligence as something in the realm of engineers and science fiction, but it’s changing aspects of everyday life, whether or not we understand how it works. From construction to business operations and even all art, the AI revolution is here.

“Anything from your vacuum cleaner to your car,” Raychowdhury added.

Raychowdhury wants to make sure Georgia Tech students hit the ground running after graduation.

“If you know how to use AI, you will be more successful than your peers who don’t know how to use AI,” he said.

This is why this first-of-its-kind makerspace, with the help of hardware supplier NVIDIA, is letting Tech engineering students dabble.

“I would say that AI is at a place where computing or learning how to program was 20 years ago,” Raychowdhury said.

The AI Makerspace has been operational for about a month, and it can compute in one second a problem that would take 50,000 Georgia Tech students 22 years.

“The idea here was to provide these computing resources not only to our classrooms, design projects, and the curriculum but also have students engage with it,” Raychowdhury said.

Georgia Tech wants the makerspace to be open not just to engineering students or Georgia Tech students but also to students at other Georgia colleges. The makerspace is expensive, and few colleges have the resources to set one up.

Raychowdhury is also aware of the stigma that AI can be dangerous.

“I’m not afraid of AI taking over the world and becoming Skynet,” Raychowdhury said, referencing the AI that destroys humanity in The Terminator films. “What I’m afraid of is people think it’s going to happen.”

And yet, the future of AI isn’t certain. It’s just reliant on the generation of minds.

“It’s impossible to predict what’s going to happen next,” Raychowdhury said.

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