Malachowsky Hall is hard to miss in the heart of UF’s campus.  

It’s the largest building at the university. It’s the most expensive academic building. It’s the only building on campus without red brick.  

“But most importantly, this is really the only building on campus that is dedicated to an interdisciplinary proposition that says we’re going to tear down boundaries because lots and lots of disciplinary boundaries are inevitably going to collapse in the midst of the digital revolution and the big datasets that are coming,” UF President Ben Sasse said. 

UF leaders joined students, staff, special guests and elected representatives to celebrate the ribbon cutting on Friday, officially opening the hall for learning. 

The seven-story building cost $150 million and boasts just over a quarter million square feet. The state of Florida funded $110 million of the building.  

The hall will host data science and information technology departments, but with UF’s initiative to spread artificial intelligence learning across every discipline, the hall will welcome students pursuing every major.  

In 2020, Chris Malachowsky and NVIDIA, a company he co-founded, donated just under $60 million toward UF’s AI supercomputer named HiPerGator. 

Malachowsky said he hopes the building can foster collaboration between people who see the world differently.  

“It’s the first multi-disciplinary academic building on the campus, and one that actively promotes collaboration,” Malachowsky said. “And I can say, from my experience at NVIDIA, we figured out that collaboration is the key to good product.” 

Cubed sections cover the glass exterior, and the inside also consists of glass walls and doors. A sensor on the roof tracks the sun and dims all the exterior windows to prevent glare, and at night, the windows tint to prevent light pollution. 

The building earned a platinum LEED certificate.