Overview
Computer Science in the College of Natural Sciences
UT computer science is strong in artificial intelligence, systems, theory and machine learning. The Machine Learning Laboratory has more than 100 researchers across computer science, electrical and computer engineering (ECE), mathematics, statistics, linguistics and ethics, and coordinates the AI institutes below.
Tesla, Apple, Google, Microsoft, Oracle, Indeed, Austin AI startups and the region's robotics companies all hire from the same students and faculty. It is part of the UT Austin Nexus.
Structure
New School of Computing
The UT System Board of Regents approved a School of Computing on February 19, 2026, opening in Fall 2026 inside the College of Natural Sciences. It joins the Department of Computer Science, the Department of Statistics and Data Sciences, and the School of Information (iSchool); existing degree programs continue unchanged.
Peter Stone, chair of Computer Science and founding director of Texas Robotics, is Special Adviser for School Formation, working with James Scott (Statistics and Data Sciences) and Ken Fleischmann (interim iSchool dean) under College of Natural Sciences Dean David Vanden Bout. The school collaborates with the Chandra Family Department of ECE in Cockrell, the Oden Institute for Computational Engineering and Sciences, and the Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC).
Research
AI Institutes and Centers
UT passed 5,000 GPUs for academic AI research in November 2025. In January 2026 the Center for Generative AI brought up an NVIDIA GB200 NVL72 system with 72 Blackwell GPUs at TACC, which UT describes as the first Blackwells running in academia.
| Institute | Focus | Details |
|---|---|---|
| NSF AI Institute for Foundations of Machine Learning (IFML) | Diffusion models, generative AI, robustness, protein engineering, clinical imaging | Director Adam Klivans; one of the first NSF AI institutes (2020); renewed with $20 million in 2025; partners include the University of Washington and Wichita State |
| Center for Generative AI | Multimodal diffusion models for images and language; campus AI compute | Director Sanjay Shakkottai (joint with ECE); 600 NVIDIA H100 GPU cluster announced 2024; GB200 NVL72 at TACC in 2026 |
| Machine Learning Laboratory | Campus hub for ML research | 100+ researchers; coordinates IFML, the Center for Generative AI and the Learning Directed Operating System (LDOS) project |
| Texas Robotics | University-wide robotics: surgical, rehabilitation, vehicles, manufacturing, space, defense | Founding director Peter Stone; feeds Apptronik, Tesla Optimus, ICON and the T2COM Robotics hub |
| Texas Quantum Institute | Quantum computing and quantum information | Launched 2024; faculty from CS, ECE, physics and mathematics |
Talent
Online AI Degree and the Austin Talent Pipeline
The online Master of Science in Artificial Intelligence (MSAI), built with heavy IFML faculty involvement, is one of the first low-cost, large-scale AI master's degrees from a top-10 CS program. It lets Texas employers such as Tesla, Samsung and Apple train AI staff without on-campus enrollment.
Computer science graduates about 600 to 700 undergraduate majors a year, and PhDs go to faculty posts, AI labs and Austin employers. Local options span AI research at Apple, Google and Microsoft; physical AI at Tesla and Apptronik; compute at TACC; startups around Capital Factory; and the T2COM PNT and Robotics hubs.
AI hires also come from ECE, the Oden Institute, McCombs School of Business analytics programs, Statistics and Data Sciences, mathematics and the iSchool; the School of Computing formalizes much of that overlap.
Record
Dataset Record
- Sources
- UT News; UT Computer Science; College of Natural Sciences; NSF; TACC
- Last verified
- Q4 2026