GREENSBORO – North Carolina A&T State University has received a five-year, $10 million federal grant to expand its defense-research capacity in artificial intelligence, autonomy, cyber resilience and quantum systems.
The U.S. Department of War named A&T an inaugural recipient of the award to establish Accelerate-DAQ. The project is funded through the department’s Historically Black Colleges and Universities and Minority-Serving Institutions Program.
Accelerate-DAQ will organize work around three research clusters: trustworthy artificial intelligence and cyber defense, AI-enabled autonomy, and quantum computing. The university said the project also will strengthen its ability to conduct sensitive or classified research.
The university expects the investment to support its effort to reach and sustain Research 1 status under the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education. WUNC reported that Vice Chancellor for Research Lisa Clough said moving from R2 to R1 could make additional government funding available.
Clough is the lead principal investigator. The project team includes Kaushik Roy, chair of A&T’s computer science department, and researchers from six colleges.