A seven-storey, 240,000-square-foot building at the University of Waterloo dedicated to engineering will be ready to go by the spring of 2018.

The building has been under construction for some time, but the project got a big boost Thursday as the federal government announced it will put $32.6 million toward the construction.

It will be used to research everything from machine intelligence to autonomous vehicles to wearable biomedical devices as the home of the school’s biomedical and mechatronics engineering programs.

Pearl Sullivan, the school’s dean of engineering, says Engineering 7 will help Waterloo “be able to fulfill its vision to engineer the future.”

Once complete, it will be one of the largest buildings on Waterloo’s campus.

The total cost of the construction project is pegged at $88 million. Funds are being raised from school alumni and the private sector.