“The more we cut, the more the ideas that are being proposed to NSF in quantum, in AI will not be funded. And guess what; who’s funding them and the people? It is our competitor,” NSF Director Sethuraman Panchanathan said, in reference to global competitors. 

“This is a national security issue,” he added, “and this is not something that we should take lightly at all. I’m extremely worried.”

Panchanathan’s comments came in response to a question from Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif, ranking member of the Committee on Science, Space and Technology, who asked about the impact that further cuts might have on research priorities on top of the roughly 8% cut the science agency already took in 2024 appropriations.

In response to that same question, Dan Reed, chair emeritus of the National Science Board, called the cuts “devastating.” 

“We’re leaving the future on the table,” Reed said. “And I would add that those cuts potentially are convolved with inflation and so the real spending cuts are actually much larger.”

The hearing before the House Oversight Subcommittee on Research and Technology comes after NSF and other science agencies experienced cuts in the fiscal year 2024 appropriations passed by Congress. 

Notably, those funding levels fell short of what lawmakers previously authorized to carry out the work of the CHIPS and Science Act, which was signed into law in 2022 to boost U.S. production of semiconductors and to support scientific research and development in emerging technology areas.

President Joe Biden’s proposed budget seeks an increase for NSF, bringing its funding from $9.06 billion in the fiscal year 2024 appropriations to $10.18 billion. But even that would still put NSF’s funding below CHIPS Act targets. 

In response to a question from Rep. Scott Franklin, R-Fla., about the research NSF is able to fund, Panchanathan said the agency generally gets more than 40,000 proposals each year and is able to fund a quarter of those on average, but roughly 30-35% of proposals it receives have achieved NSF’s “gold standard” of merit review and could be funded.

Panchanathan said he’s worried about researchers being rejected for insufficient funds when their proposals were ranked high and not continuing to try. “The lost opportunity is not even part of this. If we factor that in, it’s even more than what we’re talking about,” he said.

Rep. Mike Collins, R-Ga., the chairman of the subcommittee, acknowledged the agency’s funding levels in opening remarks, noting that “the NSF’s budgetary constraints, coupled with evolving geopolitical dynamics and shifting research priorities, underscore the importance of our discussion today.”

Similarly, Rep. Haley Stevens, D-Mich., the subcommittee’s ranking member, pointed to the panel’s work on the science portion of the CHIPS and Science Act, which authorized the NSF’s Directorate for Technology, Innovation and Partnerships and called for a doubling of NSF’s budget by 2027. 

“We can’t just say that we’re competing against China. We must put our money where our mouth is,” Stevens said.

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The projects range from research into language model safety and synthetic data generation for privacy, to developing a model for aquatic sciences and using AI for identifying agricultural pests, according to a release from the NSF. Of those projects, 27 will be supported on NSF-funded advanced computing systems and eight projects will have access to those supported by DOE, including the Summit supercomputer at Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

“You will see among these 35 projects’ unbelievable span in terms of geography, in terms of ideas, core ideas, as well as application interests,” NSF Director Sethuraman Panchanathan said at a White House event. 

The NAIRR, which launched earlier this year in pilot form as part of President Joe Biden’s executive order on AI, is aimed at providing researchers with the resources needed to carry out their work on AI by providing access to advanced computing, data, software, and AI models.

The pilot is composed of contributions from multiple federal agencies and private sector partners, including Microsoft, Amazon Web Services, NVIDIA, Intel, and IBM. Those contributions include access to supercomputers; datasets from NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration; and access to models from OpenAI, Anthropic, and Meta.

In addition to the project awards, NSF also announced the NAIRR pilot has opened the next opportunity to apply for access to research resources, including cloud computing platforms and access to foundation models, according to the release. That includes resources from nongovernmental partners and NSF-supported platforms.

Panchanathan described the appetite for the resource as “pretty strong,” noting that 50 projects have been reviewed as positive. But he said there aren’t yet resources to scale those 50 projects. “There is so much need, and so we need more resources to be brought to the table,” Panchanathan said.

While the pilot continues, there are also bipartisan efforts in Congress to codify and fully fund a full-scale NAIRR. Panchanathan and Office of Science and Technology Policy Director Arati Prabhakar underscored the need for that legislation Monday.

“Fully establishing NAIRR is going to take significant funding, and we’re happy to see that Congress has initiated action,” Prabhaker said, adding that the White House is hopeful “that full funding will be achieved.”

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A pilot for the NAIRR, a resource aimed at improving access to the computational power needed for AI research, is expected to be established in the next three months under Biden’s Oct. 30. order. The NSF on Tuesday held the first in a series of meetings “to engage the broader community in the design of the pilot,” a spokesperson told FedScoop.

The meeting of roughly 100 federal agency, private-sector and nonprofit organizations was focused on the sharing of “insights from experts and prospective providers of computational, data, software, and other resources that will be made available through the NAIRR pilot program,” the spokesperson said.

In an interview with FedScoop, NSF Director Sethuraman Panchanathan said the pilot is an investment in partnerships with relevant industry to be able to make the research infrastructure NAIRR will create “available for a set of partners so that they might then look at the pilot program and learn from it as they are building the full scale in the future.”

Panchanathan said the agency is currently working with the Office and Management Budget and Congress on the budget requirements to ensure they have the resources to complete the pilot and, eventually, the full-scale resource.

The efforts will build upon an implementation framework for the NAIRR that a task force created by Congress and co-chaired by NSF and the Office of Science and Technology Policy produced in January 2023. That framework included a pilot option that could run in parallel to a full buildout of the NAIRR, while expediting the availability of resources.

The executive order also requires Panchanathan, within 45 days, to identify heads of agencies who will submit reports that highlight the agency resources that could be developed and integrated into the NAIRR. 

The spokesperson said there are ongoing efforts to determine federal agency contributions to the pilot, noting a “NAIRR interagency working group of 14 agencies has been working together since the spring, discussing the plan for the pilot and potential contributions from agencies.” 

While the NAIRR requirements are among the most pressing deadlines for NSF under the executive order, the agency has many other responsibilities in the action. Those include establishing a pilot program to train scientists, creating at least four new National AI Research Institutes, and instituting a Research Coordination Network with the Secretary of Energy.

Panchanathan also said the NSF plans to have further meetings in the spring and fall of next year, focused on elements included in the executive order including trustworthy AI and science and security.

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TIP would see $880 million if the Biden budget is passed as is, an unlikely prospect, and $29 billion over the next five years if the America COMPETES Act, which the Senate sent to the House on Monday, becomes law.

NSF leadership announced the creation of the TIP Directorate in anticipation of the latter on March 16, but additional resources are critical for executing its mission to accelerate development of emerging technologies and resulting markets and ensure U.S. global leadership in the process.

“We are demonstrating the value of what we can accomplish and what the nation needs at this very important moment,” NSF Director Sethuraman Panchanathan told FedScoop. “We are making the case knowing that there is strong bipartisan support, so I think we’re hoping for a good outcome there.”

While Panchanathan wouldn’t comment on the pending legislation, he said funding in the fiscal 2022 budget allowed NSF to bring its translation portfolio under the TIP Directorate. Translation involves turning the results of NSF’s explorative research into innovations benefiting the U.S. economy and society, and the director wants to supercharge that process.

More NSF programs will be brought under the TIP umbrella and new ones created as it expands to cover “the set of key technologies” for U.S. competitiveness, said Erwin Gianchandani, assistant director for TIP and the directorate’s leader. The America COMPETES Act identifies 10 key technologies, some of which are sure to make TIP’s list: artificial intelligence and machine learning, high-performance computing and semiconductors, quantum information science, robotics, disaster prevention, advanced communications, biotechnology, data storage and management, advanced energy, and advanced materials.

“Exactly which areas we focus on is sort of a work in progress as we step through this and really subject to the availability of funding,” Gianchandani said.

He expects his directorate may collaborate with the National AI Research Institutes he had a hand in standing up in his previous role as deputy assistant director for computer and information science and engineering, as well as the Quantum Leap Challenge Institutes. Other NSF programs that stand to benefit are the Small Business Innovation Research, Small Business Technology Transfer, Innovation Corps and Partnerships for Innovation programs.

Unique to the TIP Directorate will be the establishment of innovation engines that combine research, entrepreneurship and workforce development to accelerate industries regionally. Gianchandani attended the launch of a 10-year, $100 million partnership with Intel to research and educate the workforce in Ohio on semiconductor design and manufacturing, and help the U.S. regain leadership in the sector, one day after the TIP Directorate’s announcement.

“How do you get to where you have that level of innovation and engagement taking place so that it can really transform the community, region and ultimately their economies all across the country?” Gianchandani said.

TIP partnerships will not only involve industry, academia and nonprofits but state, local and tribal governments; communities of practice and minority serving institutions.

The directorate’s launch was a year and a half in the making, but its sustainment will hinge on its ability to coordinate with the other NSF directorates and lawmakers interested in accelerating the agency’s work.

“As much as this is a directorate,” Gianchandani said. “I’d argue it’s even more a framework for all of NSF to really be thinking about.”

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Led by the National Science Foundation and Department of Energy respectively, the 12 multidisciplinary hubs will research the emerging technologies and train their future workforces while bolstering regional economies.

The investment is, in part, an effort to compete with those of foreign adversaries like China, who would use such technologies to suppress ethnic minorities, track private citizens and suppress free speech, according to senior administration officials.

“It is absolutely imperative that the United States continues to lead the world in AI and quantum,” Michael Kratsios, U.S. chief technology officer, said on a call with reporters Tuesday. “We know our adversaries around the world are pursuing their own advances.”

DOE and NSF spending on the 12 hubs is all a subset of the $1.2 billion authorized in the National Quantum Initiative Act of 2018.

NSF’s more than $100 million investment to establish the AI Research Institutes represents the government’s “largest, single investment in AI today,” said Director Sethuraman Panchanathan.

The agency announced three Quantum Leap Challenge Institutes in July, and the AI institutes will similarly establish and deepen a “national innovation ecosystem,” Panchanathan said.

Institutes will research machine learning, natural language processing, computer vision, human-AI interaction, and fairness and transparency — technologies that can further advances in extreme weather forecasting, physics, medicine, communications and education. Money will also go toward the training of undergraduate and graduate students.

NSF is partnering with the National Institute of Food and Agriculture, Department of Homeland Security Science & Technology Directorate, and Federal Highway Administration on the institutes. The first cohort consists of more than 100 entities active in 20 states like John Deere, which is supplying manufacturing research questions and will hire the resulting workforce, and historically black colleges and universities like Tuskegee University.

DOE leveraged the $625 million it’s spending on the QIS Research Centers to obtain $340 million in matching funds from industry and universities.

The centers are the result of a pitch competition, in which five groups comprised of 69 entities were selected for their plans to advance QIS broadly. Work at the centers will range from discovery research to the development of prototypes, said Paul Dabbar, under secretary for science at DOE.

“Their impact will go far beyond our labs, as each one of these will also have a plan in place to transfer technologies to industry or to other research partners,” Dabbar said.

Argonne, Brookhaven, Fermi, Oak Ridge, and Lawrence Berkeley national laboratories will serve as research center leads. For instance, Fermi is combining its particle physics expertise with Ames Lab’s material science, and Oak Ridge will lead a Quantum Science Center with the help of Fermi, Los Alamos and Pacific Northwest national labs.

Italy and Canada are even involved in the effort that will see IBM supply computing capacity, Microsoft experts, and Applied Materials fabrication material.

University partners include California Institute of Technology, University of Chicago, Cornell University, Harvard University, Howard University, University of Maryland, MIT, and University of New Mexico.

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