CowParade is a public art event that has been hosted in many cities around the world, starting in Zurich, Switzerland, in 1998. Each year, they make dozens of "cow canvases" (big white statues probably cast from plaster) and distribute them to artists in a different city. The artists decorate the cows, creating art, and then for a few months, the cows are displayed in various places throughout that city, and then they go up for auction to benefit some unspecified charity.
In the summer of 2003, CowParade came to Atlanta.
From their contemporary 2003 FAQ:
Why Cows?
There is really no other animal that can adequately be substituted for the cow. The surface area and bone structure are just right for decorating. The cow sculptures, created by artist Pascal Knapp, son of Walter, were designed specifically to be an art canvass. Furthermore, no other animal can be transformed into something else entirely, yet retain its identity. Lastly and equally as important, the cow is an animal we all love.
The particular cow in the lobby area of the Computer Museum of America is an art piece titled "Chip", created by Mary Engel in 2003. The cow is technically on loan to the museum, though that has been the case for many years now, and there is no foreseen relocation of Chip at this time. To the left is the only surviving thumbnail of Chip from CowParade's website, as archived by archive.org (made transparent and cropped). However, there is a better contemporary photo from the archived PDF of "Moozletter 7":
Chip was the featured cow of "Moozletter 7" (out of 8 issues, it seems).
From https://web.archive.org/web/20040612092143/http://atlanta.cowparade.net:80/upcoming/pressroom/moozletter_7.pdf
Contemporary snapshots from the official Atlanta CowParade website (2003) with more information:
If needed, additional files are available at relevant-cow-documents and other-cow-documents, including original archived files from archive.org.