This is a source-attributed discovery row. It can help you find a place and its citations; it is not a DataCenterData finding that the facility is distinct or currently operating.
Facility snapshot
- Operator as published
- Empire AI consortium (hosted by the University at Buffalo, SUNY)
- Address and locality
- Buffalo · Erie County · New York
- Lifecycle status
- reported operational
- Facility type
- data center
- Reported capacity
- Not stated
- Source freshness
- 10 September 2026
- Location precision
- approximate
- Source confidence
- confirmed
- Stable directory ID
dcd-dir-000563
What the source record says
New York State-funded public AI supercomputer, the second phase (Beta) of the Empire AI consortium. UB states it is "housed at the Center of Excellence in Bioinformatics and Life Sciences on the medical campus"; coordinates are geocoded to that building on the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus, hence approximate. Described as "a $40 million NVIDIA-powered supercomputer" delivering "an 11-fold increase in AI training capacity, a 40-fold boost in AI inference and an 8-fold expansion in data storage" versus Alpha. Confirmed absences (2026-09-09): none of the three fetched sources states a GPU count, an IT load or any MW figure, a water/cooling detail, an acreage, or a job count for Beta. Empire AI overall is backed by "over $500 million in public and private funding"; that is consortium-wide, not this site, so it is not recorded as investmentUsd. The Alpha phase (launched 2024, Simons Foundation gift) is also housed at UB and is the predecessor system on the same campus, not a separate site. The permanent Gamma facility is tracked separately as empire-ai-gamma-buffalo-ny. This $340M is the consortium-wide state capital commitment (total backing over $500M incl. private/philanthropic funds), covering Empire AI statewide -- not specific to the UB Beta phase. Reported separately from the $40M Beta-specific figure above. Flag for hand review re: attribution to this specific facility record vs. the consortium generally. SUBSIDY SCOPE NOTE (maintainer adjudication 2026-09-10): a $340m consortium-wide state capital commitment (total backing over $500m including private and philanthropic funds) covers Empire AI STATEWIDE and is not attributable to this phase or site. It is deliberately NOT recorded as a site-level `subsidies` entry, because the same figure would otherwise be counted against both the Beta and Gamma records. The phase-specific $40m Beta award IS recorded.
Any MW value is reproduced as source-reported context. Its measurement boundary is not established consistently enough for comparison. Unknown is not zero.
Status history supplied by the source
- 2026-08 · reported operational
Governor Hochul announced Empire AI Beta fully online.
Sources and attribution
- Governor Hochul Announces Empire AI Beta Fully Online as Federal Government Takes Inspiration From New York to Launch State and Regional AI Infrastructure Hubs · Office of the Governor of New York State
- Empire AI Beta, housed at UB, now fully online · University at Buffalo (UBNow)
- Governor Hochul Announces $40 Million to Launch Empire AI Beta Supercomputer · Office of the Governor of New York State
- Empire AI, housed at UB, awarded $40 million, Gov. Hochul says · University at Buffalo (UBNow)
Adapted from Compute Atlas by Edward Kubiak, edition 1.33.0, under CC BY 4.0. Upstream ID empire-ai-beta-buffalo-ny. Filtered to data-center records in the 50 U.S. states; selected fields normalized for search and display; DataCenterData directory IDs added.
This does not mean the row is wrong. It means DataCenterData has not promoted it through the independent evidence workflow.