while you are broadcasting games. Amazon’s goal is to make it easy for someone to buy stuff, and live sports and QR codes amongst other things is just another step in that direction. PS Virginia Tech made a great move partnering with Amazon in Northern Virginia! The opportunities for our students and alumni, are amazing!!

There's a partnership to do AI research. It's going to be great for some doctoral students...maybe 5-10? It won't impact 99.9% of our students. What are the opportunities for alumni that are now opened up? People seem to be misinterpreting the fact that the Innovation Campus will be a neighbor to Amazon HQ2 as some sort of fantastic partnership. It's not. Maybe someday it will be, but for now we're really just neighbors.

This partnership is just getting started and has incredible potential.

some doctoral students. Maybe a lot of doctoral students. In a very specific research area. You said "opportunities for students" as if this is something that impacts the average VT student. Not even close. And I'd still love to hear what the opportunities for alumni are. As I've said, maybe someday it will be a bigger deal. It probably will be. It will grow. But there's no indication this is more than an AI research partnership—and that's not going to impact the average student one bit.

but it's not being developed in partnership with Amazon. All that article says about Amazon is that the Innovation Campus is nicely positioned near Amazon HQ2 and was part of what attracted Amazon to that geography. It says nothing of a partnership with them. You're reading something into it that's not there.

heard is that this going to a big partnership. What are your sources that it won't be that?

I don't have any "sources." I'm just reading what's actually been announced and interpreting it and not going gaga because AMAZON! People are seeing "VT and Amazon are partners" and not actually reading what the partnership is for...it's a great thing, but it's very narrow...while it may grow big within that narrow vertical, I've seen no indication of plans for anything else...but maybe you have "sources" that say otherwise?

up project-based learning and research programs in artificial intelligence and machine learning,” said Virginia Tech President Tim Sands. “Building Virginia Tech’s strength and expertise in these fields will support critical technological advancements and our commitment to fuel workforce development in the commonwealth.” “We are delighted to collaborate with Virginia Tech in launching this new initiative which brings together the top talent in our two organizations in a joint mission to achieve ground-breaking advances in robust machine learning,” said Prem Natarajan, vice president of Alexa AI – Natural Understanding at Amazon. “The proximity of this initiative to Amazon’s HQ2 will catalyze research efforts that leverage the depth of talent in the Northern Virginia area to address some of the most pressing challenges in AI.” Amazon and Virginia Tech share a unique history in connection with Amazon’s selection of Arlington, Virginia, for its HQ2. The commonwealth's $1 billion investment in higher education, seeding the doubling of existing computer science and computer engineering programs in Blacksburg, Virginia, helped attract Amazon and was the catalyst for launching the Virginia Tech Innovation Campus. I don't understand how anyone can read these quotes and think it is going to be small, but you have made your self clear, you don't think it will have much impact on Virginia Tech students, and you certainly have a right to your opinion. I wish you could support your case with something besides your opinion, but since you don't seem to be able to do that, I guess we will just have to wait and see what happens and in the meantime let others make up their own mind.

It will likely be big in *that* area, but that's still small in the context of the overall institution. There is nothing in what you cited that indicates that this extends beyond AI research. The support for "my case" is that there's no evidence the partnership extends beyond AI research (part of my Ph.D. research, fwiw, so I appreciate that this is exciting—in that field). Even if we become the worldwide leader in AI research, that doesn't really impact the average student. It's fantastic stuff, it's just not some gamechanger for the university overall. It seems you think the quotes above support what you're saying. I'd say they actually support what I'm saying if you really read them. All the BIG talk in them is specific to AI research—that's kind of undeniable. Quote me one thing that says this is a big deal outside of AI. One. It's great that we can say "we're partners with Amazon." Obviously, everyone on here eats it up and likes to reference it. But when you look at what the partnership really is...

They only used downtime or a continuous ribbon on the bottom of the screen to advertise Amazon / QR codes. Without commercial breaks stretching out the game, they could show 5 games a day.