A University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa research project focused on agriculture and artificial intelligence (AI) has been selected for support through the NVIDIA Academic Grant Program, bringing additional advanced computing hardware to the university.
The project, “AinaFarm: Building the Foundation for Scalable Agricultural Physical AI,” led by UH Mānoa Department of Information and Computer Sciences (ICS) Assistant Professor Huaijin Chen, in collaboration with Department of Plant and Environmental Protection Sciences Professor Daniel Jenkins, and Mohsen Paryavi, a recent Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) PhD graduate, competed in the Robotics and Edge AI track. The work explores how robotics and AI can support agriculture, particularly with vision-language-action (VLA) models that allow robots to see their surroundings, understand spoken or written instructions, and carry out tasks in real farming environments.
As part of the award, NVIDIA is donating hardware to UH Mānoa to support the research. The in-kind grant includes two RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell GPUs, high-powered computer processors designed to train and run advanced AI models, and four Jetson AGX Orin compact supercomputers, which will serve as the “brains” of farm field robots, enabling them to run AI applications and make decisions directly in real-world agricultural environments.
“This project is about building practical AI tools that can actually work on farms,” Chen said. “With NVIDIA’s support, we can combine robotics and advanced computing to support local agriculture, reduce labor challenges, and develop technologies that are especially relevant for Hawaiʻi’s farming environments.”
In addition to hardware, the program offers access to NVIDIA development tools, models and training resources, as well as opportunities for broader visibility through presentations and promotional channels.
The NVIDIA Academic Grant Program supports researchers worldwide by providing access to high-performance computing resources, hardware and software. The program is designed to accelerate academic research and help move ideas from concept to real-world application.
The AinaFarm project is part of a broader, interdisciplinary collaboration at UH Mānoa that brings together researchers from the College of Natural Sciences, College of Engineering, and College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resilience (CTAHR) to advance AI-enabled solutions for agriculture. This growing effort builds on recent successes in agricultural robotics, including UH Mānoa’s $10,000 grand prize win in the 2025 Farm Robotics Challenge, and reflects a shared goal of developing practical, field-ready technologies to support farming in Hawaiʻi and beyond.
ICS is housed in the College of Natural Sciences, the Department of Plant and Environmental Protection Sciences is housed in CTAHR and ECE is housed in the College of Engineering.
