Ohio State joins OpenAI higher education consortium as company commits $50 million to advance research and education at 15 institutions

Nora Igelnik
Tue, 04 Mar 2025 14:02:02 +0000
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The message “Welcome to OpenAI” is written on the ChatGPT homepage. Credit: Karl-Josef Hildenbrand/dpa via TNS

Today, OpenAI launched NextGenAI at Ohio State, a consortium of 15 “leading research institutions” committed to using artificial intelligence for research breakthroughs and transformations in education.

The breakout artificial intelligence research organization that operates the AI chatbot ChatGPT is dedicating $50 million in “research grants, compute funding, and [Application Programming Interface] access to support students, educators, and researchers advancing the frontiers on knowledge,” according to an OpenAI press release.

Application Programming Interface — or API — is a software intermediary that allows programs to communicate data, services and more with each other.

Along with Ohio State, the founding institutions involved in NextGenAI include the California Institute of Technology, California State University System, Duke University, University of Georgia, Harvard University, Howard University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, University of Michigan, University of Mississippi, University of Oxford, Sciences Po, Texas A&M University, Boston Children’s Hospital and OpenAI itself, according to the release.

“Ohio State is at the forefront of a multidisciplinary approach to the benefits of AI, significantly impacting both research and education,” Peter Mohler, Ohio State’s executive vice president for research, innovation and technology, said in the release. “We are excited to join Open AI and this elite research partnership, which will enable us to drive even more groundbreaking discoveries and advancements in medicine, manufacturing, computing, and beyond.”

The release states NextGenAI hopes to “[accelerate] the next generation of research breakthroughs” with the help of Ohio State.

“The Ohio State University is leveraging AI to accelerate the fields of digital health, advanced therapeutics, manufacturing, energy, mobility, and agriculture, while educators are using AI to create advanced learning models,” the release states.

NextGenAI also aims to ensure the next generation of students is “AI-fluent,” create AI-powered universities and libraries and strengthen the bridge between industry and academia, according to the release.

In addition, OpenAI hopes to expand on its launch of ChatGPT Edu, which was made public in May 2024 and “enabled university-wide access to ChatGPT,” the release states. Specifically designed for university students, faculty and researchers, this version of ChatGPT can “reason across text and vision and use advanced tools such as data analysis,” according to OpenAI’s website.??

“NextGenAI complements this effort by providing institutions OpenAI’s APIs and funding to drive critical innovation,” the release states.

Mohler said the university seeks to maximize the potential positives of AI regarding research and education.

“We are excited to join Open AI and this elite research partnership, which will enable us to drive even more groundbreaking discoveries and advancements in medicine, manufacturing, computing, and beyond,” Mohler said in the release.