Virginia Tech has announced plans to complement Amazon’s new Northern Virginia offices with a $1 billion investment of its own just a couple miles down the road.
The university plans to build a 1 million-square-foot, technology-focused campus in Alexandria as part of a higher-education package that was part of Amazon’s selection of Virginia for a new headquarters.
The Virginia Tech Innovation Campus, which will host several graduate programs, will rise in the newly branded National Landing neighborhood that encompasses parts of Pentagon City and Crystal City in Arlington and Potomac Yard in Alexandria.
Graduate degree programs and research opportunities at the new campus will focus on computer science and software engineering, with specializations in areas including data science, analytics, security, IoT and technology policy. It will include a mix of academic, research and innovation space, as well as areas for housing and industry partners.
The first 100 master’s degree students will enroll next year in temporary space. Virginia Tech expects to have 500 master’s degree students within five years. The university and the state both committed to provide $250 million to seed the project.
“As a land-grant research institution, we knew we needed to claim our role of driving economic development in Virginia,” university President Tim Sands said in a statement. “Our new Innovation Campus will be the global center of technology excellence and talent production – where highly skilled students, world-class faculty, smart ideas, and forward-thinking companies will meet to propel the commonwealth and the region forward.”
The university ranks No. 8 in the nation for engineering research expenditures, according to the National Science Foundation, and the College of Engineering is ranked No. 13 for its undergraduate program, according to U.S. News & World Report.
The Innovation Campus will increase Virginia Tech’s physical footprint in Northern Virginia threefold and will approximately double the size of its computer science department in the next five years. It has about 60,000 alumni in the D.C. region and seven facilities in Northern Virginia.
The Innovation Campus isn’t Virginia Tech’s first foray into entrepreneurial technology in Northern Virginia.
Three years ago it partnered with Qualcomm to open the Thinkabit Lab in Falls Church, which has hosted more than 5,300 students and teachers, primarily from underrepresented communities in the D.C. area, to wire, program and craft inventions.
Brandy Salmon, Virginia Tech’s VP for innovation and chief operating officer of the new campus, said having a presence throughout the state is a key part of its role as a land grant research university.
Spurring along its long-term plan to increase STEM offerings, Virginia Economic Development Partnership had suggested that the school create infrastructure to support the tech environment for Amazon and others.
“We see this as a historic opportunity – once in a lifetime the way it has unfolded and happened,” Salmon said. “This will be transformational for the region and for the Commonwealth.”
