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A recent event held by SHI International highlighted another example of the Garden State’s burgeoning artificial intelligence ecosystem.

Somerset-headquartered SHI, a global technology solutions giant, cut the ribbon April 8 on its new AI & Cyber Labs, co-located in SHI’s Ridge Data Center Factory in Piscataway. The site houses SHI’s flagship among a global network of four Data Center Factories.

“Many of you may not know that SHI was born in the State of New Jersey in the 1980s – as the PC industry was born,” said Thai Lee, CEO and president of SHI, during that event. “I know we have many people from New Jersey – so I’m going to speak a lot about New Jersey.”

Lee took the helm as president in 1989 – and under her leadership the company has grown from humble beginnings as a $1 million software reseller to become a $15 billion global solutions integrator.

“And when we started SHI, we were resellers for Lotus 1-2-3, which was the leading spreadsheet application. It was a very small disc but packaged in a very large, fancy box – selling for $500,” said Lee. “This was an era before the age of the internet and email.

“It was a really long time ago – and as a company, we have come a long way,” she continued. “And I would say the world has come an incredibly long way as well. It’s very, very exciting – and sometimes scary times for all of us.”

The facility on Ridge Road opened in 2019. “Shortly thereafter, we experienced COVID, and it was very difficult for us to actually fully utilize and fully realize the potential of this facility,” said Lee. “When Jack Hogan [vice president, Advanced Growth Technologies] joined SHI and with Kapil [Bansal, senior vice president, Partner Management Solutions, SHI], we’ve been working on trying to create a facility in which our customers, our partners, and SHI can bring expertise and experience to really ideate, imagine and adopt technology as quickly as possible – in the most cost-effective manner.”

She said that was the why behind this new lab. “Very excited about this opportunity to move really quickly, very effectively and efficiently with our customers and vendor partners.”

Bansal also noted how quickly this has all come together. “We dreamed up this framework of – ‘Imagine. Experiment. Adopt.’ – nine months ago,” he said. “So, we’ve been in a sprint for the last nine months to be able to solve a lot of what our customers are looking for in the world of AI.”

He then explained what SHI means by that mantra. “It really is three things. The first is – it’s an experience. By taking our customers on this AI journey experience, we are able to meet them wherever they are on the journey. It’s a platform. By showing customers the possibilities of use cases and being able to demonstrate those use cases and modify those use cases on the fly with our customers, it unlocks so much power in terms of the potential ROI attached with AI.

“And the third thing, and perhaps the most important thing – given the talent shortages – it’s a dedicated data scientist team,” Bansal explained. “By bringing 120 people to support that journey in our AI Labs, we’re able to bring real expertise to the development of use cases.”

The facility is equipped with NVIDIA-powered infrastructure – designed to foster collaboration across academia, government, industry and more. The Labs will provide services including AI readiness assessments, data workshops and secure environments for generative AI experimentation using large language models.

A cure for FOMU

SHI said it is built to support every stage of AI projects at businesses, organizations, agencies and more.

“There are four pieces to the journey. First, it starts with imagine – and this is our Demo and Experience Center room that some of you may have seen,” said Bansal. “This is evolving from the basic horizontal use cases – retrieval, augmented generation, chat bots, digital humans – to use cases that are organized by vertical industries. We want to bring our customers into this ideation center.”

Bansal said that effort involves its partners – and working together – to be able to identify and show uses cases for customers that will work in their environment.

“The second piece of the journey – experiment,” said Bansal, pointing to the Labs. He said the plan is to offer two-week and six-week sprints for customers. “By allowing customers to bring their data into our environment, we are now able to get them to test these use cases before they have to make major purchasing decisions.

“By now, everyone has heard of FOMU – the fear of messing up. It’s a real thing. You no longer have to make these big infrastructure investments before you’ve been able to test out your data. This lab is solving for FOMU. A data point, specifically, less than 20% of proof of concepts make it through to the infrastructure purchase. Again, the sandbox environment that we can bring our customers into solves that specific problem.”

A day to remember! The ribbon has been cut and we’re officially ready to welcome you to SHI’s AI & Cyber Labs 🎉 pic.twitter.com/yhqLrtAlDS

— SHI International (@SHI_Intl) April 12, 2025

The adopt aspect of the journey shows the customers the software stack. “We’re no longer working tens of more mature data center customers. We’re now working with hundreds of customers – starting with the use cases,” he continued. “We’re working with customers that no longer have that experience necessarily in data center – which is why it’s critical to implement this adopt stage.

“The last piece of the journey is what this facility has been doing for the last six years. Thai mentioned the investment we made in this facility back in 2019, $100 million. We’re producing more than 1,000 racks a year from this building.” Bansal lauded the work of the various stakeholders for their efforts and support – leading to this moment. “It’s this complete ecosystem that got us to where we are today – within nine months,” he said. “We are incredibly proud to be doing this in the State of New Jersey. Thai mentioned that this is where we started 36 years ago. We’re really looking for this facility to become the hub and innovation hub for this industry.”

“As I started here 10 months ago, as Thai said, we had an idea to bring together this amazing ecosystem of partners,” said Hogan, who noted that he comes from the other coast – but has an affinity for the Garden State. “This amazing ecosystem of the government and education and of course, our customers.”

We are incredibly proud to be doing this in the State of New Jersey. … We’re really looking for this facility to become the hub and innovation hub for this industry.
– Kapil Bansal, SHI International

Hogan illustrated just how rapidly things are moving in the AI space in general. “AI is actually moving from generative AI, which we have all been exposed to in the form of chat bots and things like GPT. We’re moving now into the agentic phase of AI – what that means is we’re moving into a phase where AI is able to automatically act on rational decisions that it’s making on behalf of itself,” Hogan said.

“And the next horizon, which I can tell you is here, is physical AI. Where physical AI will represent itself in the form of robotics. It won’t be long – because we’re working on the project already – that you’ll see robotic dogs running around here, to be able to prove that physical AI is capable of being done. Those are the type of programs and projects we’re building our lab.”

Light bulb moment

Hogan spoke about Edison’s journey in inventing the light bulb – and all that needed to happen for it to not only to physically work but be able to be produced and used by commercial businesses for commercial purposes.

“It actually took the combination of forces over that 50 years between the government; between the research universities; between the local regulatory and compliance and utilities. And, of course, it took the innovation of those businesses that invested in the advancing technology of the light bulb – and creating additional things that were the manifestation of energy in the form of the telegraphy, the internet, the cloud.

“All of those things led up to what we now have in front of us,” said Hogan, noting the data interaction as it moves across the cloud. “And the physics that now allow us to introduce the concepts of generative AI; the concepts of agentic AI; and the concepts of physical AI.”

He said that the moment we are embarking on now is that time when New Jersey returns to the factors of invention, ideation, experimentation and leading the world in the adoption of AI technologies.

“And we want to accelerate that, at the speed of light,” Hogan explained. Continuing, he discussed use cases and how the lab will ultimately help businesses.

“This AI Lab is here now for startups that don’t have the money to invest into the large-scale infrastructure that we can make available to them,” he explained. “It matters for those mid-sized businesses that are trying to figure out the return on investment for whether or not they should build an agentic AI bot to be able to accomplish certain elements in their businesses.

“Large-scale enterprises pushing the envelope in financial services, health and life sciences, telecommunications and media, retail and manufacturing – all of these sectors are now capable of coming in and using this environment to advance their next generation ideas and turn them into successful outcomes.”

Gov. Phil Murphy spoke at the event and took part in the ribbon-cutting ceremony. “SHI was born in Jersey. And with this new hub, you are doubling down on your commitment to stay and grow in our state,” said Murphy.

“For generations, the same strengths that drew SHI and so many others of you to New Jersey have helped secure our reputation as a worldwide leader in innovation,” he said. “Our state is the birthplace of technologies – from the light bulb to the transistor … that have solved some of the world’s greatest challenges.

“And as Thai Lee has said – this facility is going to ‘help your customers solve what’s next,’” said Murphy. “Which I think is a great way to put this.”

“Your new facility will ensure New Jersey remains at the forefront of AI advancement. By helping your customers access and leverage generative and cybersecurity solutions, SHI is leaving its mark on this emerging realm and driving innovation across our state, our nation and our world. And with your support, customers will be able to explore, experiment with, and adopt AI and cyber tools – no matter their level of experience or expertise.”