Check out Virginia Tech’s $1B innovation campus, now open in Alexandria

Drones and other autonomous vehicles could soon help one another navigate dangerous terrain without actual communication. Thanks to research out of Virginia Tech, they may even eventually operate with common sense.  

Students and faculty are fusing quantum computing, artificial intelligence and wireless technology to build synced autonomous vehicles. It’s also the concept of a digital twin, explained professor Walid Saad from the school’s Bradley Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. 

“What we are trying to do is to build that human-like intelligence,” Saad told Technical.ly in the group’s lab, adjacent to a two-story drone cage for testing the technology, “that can think on behalf of those drones and robots and then tell them what to do.”

This is one example of research being done at the new Virginia Tech Innovation Campus, which opened in Alexandria at the end of February. The 11-story building spans 300,000 square feet and cost $302.1 million to build, furnish and stock with equipment. The entire campus is a $1 billion endeavor, with more buildings slated in the future.

More than 500 graduate students are taking classes at the campus. They and the nearly 20 faculty members employed focus on AI, quantum and wireless — just like Saad’s work and his team. 

There’s also an immersive lab projecting data and art on the walls of the space (which will occasionally be open to the public for art shows), a 3D printing facility and a space for developing wireless technologies. 

How the project came together

$168 million from Virginia and $107 million in gifts — including $50 million from Crystal City aircraft giant Boeing and $12.5 million from Falls Church-headquartered defense firm Northrop Grumman — helped make the building possible. It’s the largest building in Virginia Tech’s portfolio, which includes its main campus in Blacksburg and others throughout Northern Virginia, Richmond, Roanoke and Newport News. 

“The opening of the new location here in Alexandria adds to Virginia Tech’s growing network of innovation, really throughout the Commonwealth,” Lance Collins, Virginia Tech Innovation Campus’ vice president and executive director, told reporters during a tour of the building. 

The campus came about as part of efforts by the Virginia Economic Development Partnership, the state’s business and workforce development arm, to bring Amazon’s second headquarters to nearby Crystal City. Plans for this campus were announced in 2018, and construction began in 2021. 

A Metro station, Potomac Yard, also opened near the campus in 2023 — the same year Amazon opened up its HQ2. 

There are efforts to eventually build two more buildings at the campus, per Liza Morris, the university’s architect and vice president for planning.  

“When the university does need to continue to grow,” Morris told reporters, “we have the options to do that.”

Virginia Tech isn’t the only college in the Commonwealth digging into innovation. Fairfax-based George Mason University intends to fully open its own 345,000-square-foot, tech-focused building in Arlington this August. 

Benefits of local and state connections 

The campus is working closely with corporations and the state government, per Collins, its executive director. 

Several faculty members have federal grants supporting research but are “monitoring the situation” with federal government funding, he told Technical.ly. The campus intends to continue working with federal entities as the Trump administration targets research grants.  

He also hopes technology developed at the campus can be used by the government, including in the nearby Department of Defense or intelligence agencies. 

“We will continue to work with the federal government,” Collins said, “and we’re just in maybe a slightly better position because we also have relationships that go beyond the federal government.”

For those students interested in developing their own company instead of working on an existing firm’s project, the campus’ Master of Engineering program offers an entrepreneurship track. Collins is planning on hosting a demo day at the conclusion of their degree programs — and inviting investors to hear their ideas. 

“We really think this needs to be a vibrant startup ecosystem,” Collins said, “to go along with the large corporations that are here.”

The new campus’ work isn’t insular: There’s a space for K-12 educational programming. In one of the initiatives, Project Red Rover, middle school students drive lookalike Mars rovers through obstacle courses and pick up samples. Virginia Tech is mainly working with Alexandria City Public Schools, per Pamela Gilchrist, the director of K-12 programs at the campus. But she’s brought in Maryland and DC students, she said. 

Gilchrist also plans to expand the Red Rover program to elementary and high school students, but in different iterations to best fit the age group. 

“It’s so important to create an ecosystem that leverages the expertise of higher ed, community, schools, industry and our parents as well,” Gilchrist said. “We’re here to stay, so we want to make sure that we develop those enduring relationships in the place that we’re playing.”

Scroll down for more photos from the new campus.