The multi-billion-dollar HELIX — Health + Life Sciences Exchange — development in downtown New Brunswick recently secured a technology partner through Amazon. The development’s innovation hub, led by Rutgers University and RWJBarnabas Health, will be supported by Amazon Web Services’ cloud and artificial intelligence services.
A prepared statement from Rutgers and RWJBarnabas says the innovation hub, with help from AWS, will bring together students, clinicians, researchers, and technology experts looking to accelerate advances in medical education, clinical innovation, and patient care in the Garden State.
Undergraduate and graduate students will have the opportunity to participate in four- to 10-week rapid prototyping projects designed to spur collaborations to design and test ideas. Areas of focus for the new innovation hub include technology that supports clinical decision-making, medical and interprofessional education, student health and wellness, hospital operations and efforts to advance health equity.
RWJBarnabas did not respond to Jersey Digs’ request for comment about the size and location of the innovation hub.
The announcement from AWS comes 10 months after the City of New Brunswick planning board approved a final site plan for the third and final phase of the HELIX campus. The project’s lead developer, the New Brunswick Development Corporation (DevCo), secured approvals in December for a 39-story mixed-use tower spanning over half a million square feet.
The first seven stories of that tower are intended to be occupied by the Middlesex County government, while the 8th through 39th floors will consist of 256 apartments and 31 student housing units.
The second phase of the project, known as H-2, includes 600,000 square feet of built-to-suit lab and office space for life sciences and tech tenants. Jersey Digs reported in June 2023 that New York-based SJP Properties and DevCo were involved in the project. That was two years before Jersey Digs reported that the New Jersey Economic Development Authority provided $104 million in gap financing for the second phase of the project, which will also serve as the new North American headquarters for Nokia Bell Labs.
The first phase opened in July and consists of a 12-story, 574,000-square-foot tower. It includes the 30,000-square-foot New Jersey Innovation Hub, which provides flexible lab space to early-stage, science-driven startups and the Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, as well as a Rutgers translational research facility.
