Choose New Jersey and Foundry Launch Strategic Initiative to Accelerate AI Innovation for New Jersey AI Startups

Newark, NJ – April 23, 2025 — Choose New Jersey, a leading nonprofit economic development organization, today announced a strategic partnership with Foundry, a premier AI cloud platform, to provide AI startups in New Jersey with priority access to compute. This initiative eliminates a major barrier for early-stage AI companies, ensuring they have the resources needed to scale and compete on a national and global level.

Accelerating AI Innovation in New Jersey

New Jersey is making bold investments to position itself at the forefront of artificial intelligence innovation. Through strategic initiatives, world-class research institutions, and a thriving business ecosystem, the state actively fosters an environment where AI companies can launch, scale, and succeed. Choose New Jersey has been instrumental in this effort, working closely with industry leaders, startups, and policymakers to attract cutting-edge AI firms and ensure they have the resources they need to thrive.

 From the establishment of the NJ AI Hub to public-private partnerships that provide access to critical infrastructure, New Jersey is creating an ecosystem that supports AI-driven breakthroughs across industries, including life sciences, finance, logistics, and advanced manufacturing. This partnership with Foundry continues that commitment, removing barriers to growth and reinforcing New Jersey’s status as a premier destination for AI innovation.

As AI development progresses worldwide, the state of New Jersey has established itself as a leader in the sector, bolstered by strong commitments from research, academic, and commercial organizations statewide to invest in AI innovation. Home to world-class universities, cutting-edge research institutions, and a thriving technology ecosystem, New Jersey is rapidly becoming a hub for AI-driven breakthroughs across industries, from life sciences and finance to manufacturing and logistics.

However, early-stage AI startups in every geography are facing a significant hurdle—access to the compute required to train and deploy advanced machine learning models. These startups typically have highly variable capacity requirements, often intermittently requiring large amounts of compute for a matter of hours or days. This is at odds with how traditional cloud providers are offering this compute, requiring multi-month commitments to reserve capacity. 

Choose New Jersey is partnering with Foundry to address this gap, providing local startups with affordable, priority access to a GPU cluster designed for AI workloads. By ensuring that AI startups in New Jersey have the compute they need to scale, this collaboration strengthens the state’s position as a premier destination for AI innovation and empowers the next generation of groundbreaking companies.

“New Jersey is committed to fostering a thriving AI ecosystem, and access to scalable, affordable compute is a critical factor for early-stage companies looking to grow and compete,” said Wesley Mathews, President & CEO of Choose New Jersey. “Our partnership with Foundry removes a major barrier for AI startups, ensuring they have the infrastructure to drive innovation right here in New Jersey. This initiative reinforces New Jersey’s position as a leader in AI and technology, attracting top talent and groundbreaking companies from around the world.”

“Artificial intelligence is transforming industries, and New Jersey ensures that AI companies have the critical resources they need to drive innovation,” said Tim Crouch, Chief Strategy Officer of Choose New Jersey and Executive Director of the New Jersey West Coast Center. “Access to scalable, high-performance compute is a game-changer for startups looking to train and deploy advanced models. Through this partnership with Foundry, we are eliminating a major hurdle for early-stage AI companies, giving them a competitive edge and reinforcing New Jersey’s position as a leading hub for AI development.”

 Giving New Jersey Startups Access to Critical AI Infrastructure

Choose New Jersey’s partnership with Foundry proves AI startups in the New Jersey ecosystem with affordable and scalable GPU infrastructure, helping them compete in an industry where limited access to compute is a primary barrier to success.

Through this partnership, Foundry will offer Choose New Jersey startups: 

• Priority Compute Access – Startups participating via Choose New Jersey will have priority access to a GPU compute cluster provided by Foundry.
• Cost Efficiency – The initiative offers highly advantageous pricing for early-stage companies.
• Scalability – Companies can seamlessly scale to meet their capacity needs with hourly reservations and always-available spot instances..
• Comprehensive Support – Foundry will provide ongoing customer support to ensure a seamless customer experience.

“Compute access shouldn’t be the bottleneck for innovation,” said Jared Quincy Davis, Founder and CEO of Foundry. “We’re partnering with Choose New Jersey to empower the next generation of AI startups with the infrastructure they need — when they need it. This initiative removes the friction that too often slows early-stage companies and allows them to focus on what matters most: building transformative technology.”

By eliminating the need for complex negotiations and long-term contracts typically required by larger cloud providers, this initiative simplifies the process for startups to access compute and focus on innovation.

Startups interested in leveraging this opportunity can contact Choose New Jersey to begin the application process. Foundry will work closely with eligible companies to onboard them onto the platform and provide ongoing support to ensure their success.

About Choose New Jersey

Choose New Jersey is the state’s leading non-profit business attraction organization. We harness the collective power of New Jersey’s business, government, labor, and academic sectors to expand New Jersey’s economy. We work globally, using our marketing expertise, concierge business development services, deep knowledge of the state, and convening power, in collaboration with state government, to empower businesses, entrepreneurs, leaders, and innovators to make New Jersey their home.

Media Contact:
Ingrid Austin
[email protected]
609.297.2193

About Foundry

Founded by alumni from DeepMind’s core Deep Learning Team and Stanford’s CS PhD program (group led by Databricks co-founder Matei Zaharia), Foundry is a new breed of public cloud, engineered from the ground up to cater to the unique demands of machine learning workloads. Foundry is backed by Sequoia Capital, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Redpoint, Microsoft Ventures (M12), Conviction, NEA, and other leading technical and commercial minds from the AI industry. 

Media Contact:
Method Communications
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