The US Department of Energy has announced major funding to scale up artificial intelligence projects that accelerate scientific discovery. The awards, announced October 8, come under Phase II of the Genesis Mission, a national initiative to mobilise government, industry and academia around AI for science.

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory will lead MOAT-Core, which applies AI to design and run the particle accelerators used in physics, chemistry, biology and materials research. The project expands an AI assistant called Osprey across eight facilities at seven national labs.

Argonne National Laboratory won funding for AI4HPC, a framework to help scientists modernise the complex software powering supercomputers.

“The Genesis Mission offers a unique opportunity to leverage the rapidly expanding power of agentic assistants and revolutionize the way that we design and operate particle accelerators,” said project lead Jean-Luc Vay. The awards grow the effort to 16 collaborating institutions over multiple years.

Governments are racing to turn AI from a research tool into research infrastructure. The funded projects target energy, health, space and national security.