President Trump signed an executive order on Monday to strengthen the nation’s scientific research through the use of artificial intelligence.
The effort, called the Genesis Mission, will “build an integrated AI platform that leverages the federal government’s scientific datasets (the largest collection of such datasets in the world, developed over decades of federal investment) to train scientific foundational models, test new hypotheses, automate research workflows, and create AI agents to accelerate scientific progress,” according to the order.
The Department of Energy’s national laboratories will make data available to help automate experiments and generate predictive models for “everything from protein folding to the dynamics of fusion plasma,” Michael Kratsios, director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy, told reporters at a briefing Monday before the executive order was published.
The government’s plan is to initially use existing supercomputers within the country’s 17 national laboratories and eventually build out more computing infrastructure. The White House did not say how the additional technology would be paid for.
Chipmakers Nvidia and AMD and computer giants Hewlett Packard Enterprise and Dell have already agreed to build facilities at national laboratories, a White House official told reporters at a briefing who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss details of the program. Some data will be shared with AI companies, but White House officials said the government will withhold sensitive information that could jeopardize national security.
“This will shorten discovery timelines from years to days or even hours, allowing scientists to test bolder hypotheses and discover breakthrough discoveries that are currently out of reach,” Kratsios added.
This was Trump’s latest executive order on AI.From his first day in office, Trump has issued orders to remove regulatory hurdles and speed up the licensing and export of AI.He defended Silicon Valley’s AI industry and warned that regulations could hinder the nation’s battle with China for economic and technological leadership.
