diff --git a/mllib/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/mllib/linalg/Matrices.scala b/mllib/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/mllib/linalg/Matrices.scala
index e8f34388cd9fe..0f2ac8a68f9f6 100644
--- a/mllib/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/mllib/linalg/Matrices.scala
+++ b/mllib/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/mllib/linalg/Matrices.scala
@@ -496,6 +496,21 @@ object DenseMatrix {
     new DenseMatrix(numRows, numCols, Array.fill(numRows * numCols)(rng.nextDouble()))
   }
 
+  /**
+    * Generate a `DenseMatrix` consisting of `i.i.d.` uniform random numbers.
+    * 
+    * @param numRows number of rows of the matrix
+    * @param numCols number of columns of the matrix
+    * @return DenseMatrix` with size `numRows` x `numCols` and values in U(0, 1)
+    */
+  @Since("2.0.0")
+  def rand(numRows: Int, numCols: Int): DenseMatrix = {
+    require(numRows.toLong * numCols <= Int.MaxValue,
+      s"$numRows x $numCols dense matrix is too large to allocate")
+    val rng=new Random()
+    new DenseMatrix(numRows, numCols, Array.fill(numRows * numCols)(rng.nextDouble()))
+  }
+  
   /**
    * Generate a `DenseMatrix` consisting of `i.i.d.` gaussian random numbers.
    * @param numRows number of rows of the matrix