The White House has unveiled a sweeping new national initiative, dubbed the Genesis Mission aimed at using AI to accelerate scientific research and innovation.
By tapping into the federal government’s vast trove of research datasets and high-performance computing resources, the mission seeks to transform America’s research infrastructure and secure technological leadership.
“This pivotal moment … requires a historic national effort, comparable in urgency and ambition to the Manhattan Project,” the order released by the White House stated, calling Genesis a coordinated effort to deploy AI-enabled models and agents for hypothesis testing, automated research workflows, and scientific breakthroughs.
Under the directive, the US Department of Energy (DOE) will lead the effort, building out what is called the American Science and Security Platform. This platform will provide unified access to supercomputers, AI modeling frameworks, secure scientific datasets, and tools for autonomous experimentation.
The order directs the DOE Secretary to identify and integrate computing, storage, and networking resources, including cloud-based systems and national laboratories within 90 days.
By 120 days, the Secretary must propose a portfolio of initial data and model assets; by 240 days, review lab capabilities for AI-augmented research; and within 270 days, establish a working prototype of the platform for at least one national science challenge.
More than two dozen “science and technology challenges” have been identified for the mission, including areas such as advanced manufacturing, biotechnology, critical materials, nuclear energy, quantum information science, and microelectronics.
President Donald Trump has assigned overall leadership of the mission to the assistant to the president for science and technology (APST), who will coordinate interagency efforts through the National Science & Technology Council (NSTC).
The APST is also tasked with guiding strategy, funding prizes, and establishing partnerships with national laboratories, universities, and private-sector entities.
Genesis is expected to mobilise America’s research and development assets including DOE labs, academic institutions, and major technology companies to train scientific foundation models and build agentic AI that can “test new hypotheses” and “automate research workflows.”
The mission explicitly aims to “dramatically accelerate scientific discovery, strengthen national security, strengthen energy dominance … and multiply the return on taxpayer investment,” the order declares.
In addition, the order establishes new mechanisms for external collaboration and funding: it calls for cooperative R&D agreements, prize competitions, and standardised data- and model-sharing frameworks. It also outlines rules for data governance, IP licensing, export controls, and security approvals.
“We will harness … the world’s largest collection of scientific datasets … to train scientific foundation models and create AI agents to test new hypotheses, automate research workflows, and accelerate scientific breakthroughs,” the order reads.
To evaluate progress, the DOE Secretary must submit an annual report to the President, detailing platform performance, lab integration, user engagement, research outcomes, and partner collaboration.
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