Washington Sen. Patty Murray believes the future of artificial intelligence shouldn’t be dictated solely by billionaires and shareholders.
The longtime lawmaker toured research facilities at the University of Washington on Friday after securing $10 million in federal funding that will allow the UW to expand the infrastructure needed for data-intensive AI workloads.
Sen. Murray said the funding will help provide a counterweight to AI development driven primarily by private capital.
“If just billionaires are creating and using AI for their own projects that make money, then we lose out on most of the benefits of AI,” Murray told GeekWire.
Universities play a critical role in ensuring AI advances serve public needs, Murray said, pointing to applications ranging from healthcare and environmental research to workforce training and job creation.
The new funding, which comes through Congressionally Directed Spending in the Commerce-Justice-Science appropriations bill, will support Tillicum, the UW’s next-generation computing platform that launched in October.
University leaders say the investment will enable faster research cycles and broader access — while reducing reliance on commercial cloud providers.
“This allows us to stay at the cutting edge of AI and AI research,” said Andrew Connolly, director of the eScience Institute.
Unlike private companies that ultimately answer to shareholders, public universities answer to taxpayers, said Magdalena Balazinska, director of the Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering. “That means our goal is to do what’s best for society,” she said.
Universities nationwide have struggled to keep pace with the rapid growth of AI computing demands, as private companies dominate access to large-scale infrastructure.
Balazinska called the new funding a “very significant amount,” saying that even relatively modest investments can be transformative in an academic setting. She added that access to computing resources is often the first question prospective faculty ask when considering whether they can be successful at the UW.
Murray on Friday visited the UW’s eScience Institute, a data science and AI research hub for the university, and spoke with students about their work. A recurring theme during the tour was the importance of keeping sensitive data on campus.
Several students demonstrated AI projects that rely on large volumes of personal or scientific data, including a health-focused system that uses voice input and AI analysis to track symptoms and generate summaries for doctors. Researchers said developing such tools on UW-owned infrastructure avoids sending sensitive data to third-party cloud providers. Having in-house compute also allows students and faculty to iterate more quickly.
Murray, the top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee, framed the funding as foundational infrastructure and key to the economy in her home state.
“If you don’t have the computers, if you don’t have the basic infrastructure, you’re stymied,” she said. “So this benefits everybody — whether it’s creating jobs, whether it’s creating better healthcare, whether it’s creating more innovators who come here to Washington state to be able to create jobs for the future and make a better way of life for all of us.”
Murray also helped secure an additional $3 million for new fan blades at the UW’s Kirsten Wind Tunnel, and $1.5 million for improvements to UW’s Radiocarbon Lab. The broader federal spending bill boosts funding for other scientific agencies such as the National Institute of Standards and Technology, pushing back on proposals from President Trump to sharply cut federal research spending.
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