Northeastern University in Boston has announced a $100 million commitment from technology investor David Roux and his wife, Barbara, to launch a graduate education and research campus in Portland, Maine.

To be called the Roux Institute at Northeastern University, the institute will partner with leading employers in Maine and northern New England to educate rising generations for high-demand jobs. To that end, the institute will offer graduate degree and certificate programs focused on the practical application of artificial intelligence and machine learning in the digital and life sciences, with curricula to be developed in collaboration with ten corporate partners — Bangor Savings Bank, EXX, the Jackson Laboratory, L.L. Bean, eHealth, PTC, Thornton Tomasetti, Tilson, Unum, and WEX. The companies also have agreed to fund applied research projects and establish innovation labs where faculty and industry experts can collaborate on projects.

In the digital tech realm, the initial program portfolio will include applied analytics, computer science, data science, data visualization, and machine learning, while in the life sciences the curricula will include bioinformatics, biotechnology, genomics, health data analytics, and precision medicine.

The couple selected Northeastern following a two-year search for a partner institution. The Portland campus will be part of Northeastern's global university system, which includes campuses in London, Toronto, Vancouver, Charlotte, the Bay Area, Seattle, and Boston, Nahant, and Burlington in Massachusetts. "The Roux Institute represents a significant expansion of our model," said Northeastern University president Joseph E. Aoun. "In the past, we have founded campuses initially focused on lifelong learning, such as Seattle, and other campuses initially focused on research, such as Burlington. This is the first campus that integrates these two models from day one."

"In this country, ambition and ability are broadly distributed but opportunity is not," said Roux, who is a native of Lewiston, Maine, chair of private investment company BayPine, and co-founder, former chair, and co-CEO of technology-focused private equity firm Silver Lake. "This new institute will address that stark disparity. It will be an opportunity machine for Maine's people and businesses at precisely the right time. And Northeastern is the ideal academic partner to make that happen. We could not be happier that the university is joining us in this mission."