NSF, DOE Announce Over $1B in Awards for AI, QIS Research Institutes

The National Science Foundation and the Department of Energy are investing more than $1B in efforts to advance research and development initiatives focused on the industries of the future such as artificial intelligence, quantum information science and 5G communications.

An initial $140M will be distributed over five years to seven NSF-led AI research institutes, which will serve as hubs for R&D areas, such as machine-learning, synthetic manufacturing, precision agriculture and forecasting prediction. The NSF intends to build on the award with more than $300M in additional AI research institute funding by next summer, the White House announced. 

AI research will be performed in universities nationwide, including the University of Oklahoma at Norman, the University of Texas at Austin, the University of Colorado at Boulder, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, the University of California at Davis, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Meanwhile, the DOE plans to award $625M over five years for the establishment of QIS research centers. The award will be given to five centers that will be led research teams from the Argonne, Brookhaven, Fermi, Oak Ridge, and Lawrence Berkeley national laboratories. A separate $300M funding from the private sector and academia will be awarded to the centers as well. 

The five centers selected for the effort will perform research on quantum networking, sensing, computing and materials manufacturing. 

In addition to fostering research on emerging technologies, the NSF’s AI research institutes and DOE’s QIS research centers are expected to spur innovation, support regional economic growth and provide training for the next generation workforce.