Research NewsletterIssue: ORN-2023-34

Department of Energy Announces $16 Million for Research on Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning (AI/ML) for Nuclear Physics Accelerators and Detectors

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced $16 million for fifteen projects that will implement artificial intelligence methods to accelerate scientific discovery in nuclear physics research. These projects will use AI/ML tools and methods for nuclear physics experiments, simulation, theory, and accelerator operation to expand and accelerate scientific reach.

“Artificial intelligence has the potential to shorten the timeline for experimental discovery in nuclear physics,” said Timothy Hallman, DOE Associate Director of Science for Nuclear Physics. “Particle accelerator facilities and nuclear physics instrumentation face a variety of technical challenges in simulations, control, data acquisition, and analysis that artificial intelligence holds promise to address.”

The fifteen projects will be conducted by nuclear physics researchers at eight DOE national laboratories and 22 universities. Projects will include the development of deep learning algorithms to identify a unique signal for studying physics of fundamental symmetry in extremely rare nuclear decays that if observed would demonstrate how our universe could have become dominated by matter rather than antimatter. Supported efforts also include AI-driven detector design for the Electron-Ion Collider (EIC) accelerator project under construction at Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL) that will probe the internal structure and forces of protons and neutrons that compose the atomic nucleus. Also, several accelerator beam optimization projects using AI/ML tools will be funded at scientific user facilities supported by Nuclear Physics including the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams at Michigan State University, the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider at BNL, and the future EIC, to be located at BNL.

The projects are supported by the DOE Office of Science, Nuclear Physics Program.  Awards were selected by competitive peer review. Total planned funding is $16 million, with $8 million in Fiscal Year 2023 dollars and outyear funding contingent on congressional appropriations. The list of projects and more information can be found on the Nuclear Physics homepage.

NSF: Special Guidelines for Submitting Collaborative Proposals under U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) and the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) of India Collaborative Research Opportunities; Division of Physics: Investigator-Initiated Research Projects (PHY); Smart Health and Biomedical Research in the Era of Artificial Intelligence and Advanced Data Science (SCH)

NIH: Planning for Product Development Strategy (R34); Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award (NRSA) Individual Predoctoral Fellowship (Parent F31); National Centers for Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (NCBIB) (P41)

Department of Defense/US Army/DARPA/ONR: DoD Research and Education Program for Historically Black Colleges and Universities and Minority-Serving Institutions (HBCU/MI) Research; Adversarial Resilient Cyber Effects for Decision Dominance Collaborative Research Program; Synthetic Quantum Nanostructures (SynQuaNon); BROAD AGENCY ANNOUNCEMENT (BAA) for Extramural Biomedical Research and Development

Department of Transportation: FY2023 Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO)

Department of Energy: Bipartisan Infrastructure Law: Silicon Solar Manufacturing, and Dual-use Photovoltaics Incubator; Fiscal Year 2024 Distinguished Early Career Program

Emerging technologies star in White House R&D priorities: Advancing responsible artificial intelligence, leveraging emerging technologies for national security purposes and decarbonizing the U.S. economy were named as three of the Biden administration’s research priority areas for the fiscal 2025, further emphasizing the role critical and developing tech stands to play in key government operations in the years to come. Unveiled Thursday by the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, the memorandum named seven research areas as upcoming priorities across several federal agencies.

The memo specifically asks federal agencies to tailor their forthcoming fiscal 2025 budget requests with the seven research and development priority areas in mind. The complete list includes trustworthy AI; national security technologies; climate crisis solutions; systems that support better universal health outcomes; social inequity reductions; and broadly supporting U.S. competitiveness in innovative technology research.

Specific critical and emerging technologies the White House listed in the memo featured quantum information sciences, high performance computing, microelectronics and nuclear energy, among others.

Underpinning these priority areas is the singular goal to continue advancing U.S.  interests and leadership through technological innovation. This includes a focus on fortifying the nation’s infrastructure, which has been under attack from malicious cyber actors at an increasing rate for several years. Supporting supply chain resilience and cultivating a strong workforce also play into the Biden administration’s emphasis on a technologically-robust domestic infrastructure.

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National intelligence strategy calls for new partnerships to harness emerging technologies: The National Intelligence Strategy calls for fostering new partnerships and tapping external perspectives to better identify critical emerging technologies and maintain strategic competitiveness against foreign adversaries.  The strategy, released on Aug. 9, outlines the Intelligence Community's top priorities for the next four years with six major goals, including delivering interoperable and innovative solutions at scale, as well as expanding capabilities and expertise on transnational challenges.  The document says the IC "must be able to identify the applications and implications of emerging technologies, understand supply chains and use economic statecraft tools" in partnership with key stakeholders to maintain economic and national security, alongside a strategic competition with nations that “layer authoritarian governance with revisionist foreign policy.”  

The strategy says the IC has to "deepen and expand" its collection and analytic capabilities by partnering with stakeholders throughout the public and private sectors to establish new systems that promote greater interoperability.  "The IC will invest in developing innovative methods and cultivating new sources, and work more systematically with allies and partners and public and private sector partners to facilitate a common understanding of technological and other risks and how to address them," the strategy says. The strategy also tasks the IC with "harnessing open source, 'big data,' artificial intelligence and advanced analytics" to improve its insights into competitor capabilities and intentions. "The IC also must enhance its ability to understand how countries in every region of the world perceive, are implicated by and seek to navigate this new landscape."

A June report from the Government Accountability Office examining counterterrorism cooperation between federal agencies indicated that further action is needed throughout the IC to develop its information sharing environment. A December 2020 GAO  report also said that the IC needs to strengthen its workforce diversity – a top goal outlined in the 2023 strategy. 

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NSF aims to drive democratization of AI with its funding: The National Science Foundation is taking a holistic approach to promoting and utilizing trustworthy artificial intelligence systems in its research and education programming, as generative technologies stand to shake up the scientific landscape. “This government partnership with academia will contribute to the national discussion of standards and benchmarks by providing the needed underpinnings in foundational research and the participation of the broader AI research community and the establishment of societally beneficial practices,” Littman said.  Researchers in the TRAILS program will specifically help develop metrics to gauge trustworthiness in AI systems, analyze the government’s role in promoting trust in AI technologies and develop incentives for more inherent, trustworthy designs features in AI softwares. More information is posted on the NextGov website.

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