BOZEMAN — Montana State University broke ground on Wednesday, April 17, for a new building that will house the Gianforte School of Computing.
The Gianforte Family Foundation donated $50 million to create this three-story building that will also provide space for computing-related fields, including cybersecurity, film, photography, and music technologies.
The building, named Gianforte Hall, will feature two large classrooms and laboratories dedicated to robotics, cybersecurity, augmented and virtual reality, data science, artificial intelligence, and machine learning.
Michael Becker, the director of Montana State University News Service tells us, “What it’s really going to be is a place where multiple disciplines involving computers can come together, and students can work with each other to have a common space and hopefully generate new and exciting ideas.”
Gianforte Hall will be part of Montana State’s South Campus Energy district, a system that helps reduce energy use by allowing buildings to help heat and cool each other. Additionally, Gianforte Hall will be Montana State’s first mass timber structure—a sustainable choice of materials that will help minimize carbon emissions from concrete and steel used elsewhere in construction.
Gianforte Hall construction will start over the summer and is expected to open in 2026.
