By Sophia Herndon
The University of Maryland’s Department of Computer Science recently received an NVIDIA academic grant. Professor Dinesh Manocha will lead this research to advance artificial intelligence work in audio general intelligence.
According to an AssemblyAI article, audio intelligence is the ability of AI to interact with audio through responses and interpretation. It plays a major role in enabling AI to communicate more naturally with society.
NVIDIA is a global technology company that designs AI software and is highly selective in giving grants. This award provides the department with 32,000 hours of high-performance computing. This will allow researchers to compress complex AI work and run larger experiments.
In an email to Stories Beneath the Shell, Manocha explained that this grant will propel the work of a variety of students involved in AI.
Manocha said he has doctoral students from the Department of Computer Science, as well as the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, working on audio intelligence. They would benefit from these resources in their research.
“This GPU grant will help us develop next-generation omni-models and further enhance the state-of-the-art,” Manocha wrote.
Omni-models are AI systems designed to interact and communicate with different forms of data.
Senior computer science doctoral student Sreyan Ghosh works under Manocha in the GAMMA lab, a UMD research group that focuses on developing audio intelligence. Ghosh is also an NVIDIA fellow and has worked with NVIDIA to develop AI systems.
GAMMA recognizes audio intelligence as a crucial element of AI productivity and strives for innovation. Their goals and projects can be found on their website.
In an email to Stories Beneath the Shell, Ghosh explained this grant “creates exciting new opportunities for students to engage with AI research in a hands-on way.”
As AI rapidly develops, grants such as this one allow students to advance their skills, research and productivity with AI at UMD.
“It strengthens UMD’s position as a leading place for cutting-edge AI research,” Ghosh wrote.
Featured Image: The exterior of the Brendan Iribe Center for Computer Science and Engineering on March 24, 2025. Photo by Kendrick Brown.