By Sarah Zamer
IT Communications Specialist

This fall, the University at Buffalo launched its new AI and Society Department, strengthening UB as a national leader in AI teaching and research, dedicated to harnessing artificial intelligence for the public good.  
 
UBIT is a strategic partner in this initiative, providing technology and systems necessary to support the AI and Society department, starting with BullsAI, a complete inhouse AI platform that the UB community will use to research and innovate.  
 
The BullsAI Platform is designed to support those with both technical and non-technical experience, offering a suite of applications and services tailored to diverse academic needs:

• BullsAI Chat is UB’s own ChatGPT-like tool that will be the first application rolled out. Faculty and student pilot groups will use it to assist with text, image, and document-based tasks. 

• BullsAI Agents will be customizable assistants that combine prompts with curated document libraries. For example, students will be able to create an AI Tutor that answers questions based on a specific course curriculum. 

• BullsAI Labs will be an easy setup environment for hands-on coding and data science tasks, offering an environment for classrooms or independent study. 

BullsAI is hosted locally on UB’s network, ensuring compliance with SUNY’s Information Security Policy (SUNY 6900) and maintaining the highest standards of data privacy and integrity.  
 
With a secure, local environment, personal data is protected at UB. The important work of teachers and researchers will not be used to train external AI models. All information will remain within the institution.

At the heart of the BullsAI Platform are four NVIDIA DGX B200 servers, equipped with 448 CPU cores and 32 GPUs, enabling high-performance computing for demanding AI applications and large-scale data processing.  
 
This infrastructure was developed in-house by staff from across UBIT departments. 

 “BullsAI is about giving every UB student the tools to explore, create, and learn in ways that were never possible before. By making AI accessible and secure on campus, we’re opening doors for innovation across every discipline—from engineering to the arts—while ensuring students can experiment confidently in a protected environment,” said Heath Tuttle Ph.D., UB’s Vice President & Chief Information Officer.

UBIT is actively seeking input from faculty to tailor AI resources to specific teaching and research needs, and will provide training, support, and forums for ongoing collaboration.  
 
Anyone who has questions, feedback or needs training can submit a ticket to the UBIT Help Center at buffalo.edu/ubit/help.

As a reminder, Microsoft Copilot Chat is available to faculty, staff, and students by logging in with your UBITName and password.

Once you sign in, Microsoft will never use any information that you input or obtain from a Microsoft Copilot Chat session to train AI models.

UB students: As with all generative AI tools, please check with each instructor about its appropriate use to ensure that you are abiding by UB’s academic integrity policy.

Pilot phases for BullsAI are currently underway during the Fall 2025 semester and will continue in Spring 2026.