The White House announced “a dedicated, coordinated national effort to unleash a new age of AI‑accelerated innovation and discovery that can solve the most challenging problems of this century,” the Genesis Mission, according to an executive order published on Monday.
The Genesis Mission logo. Credit: DOE
The mission will train AI agents to test hypotheses, automate research workflows and accelerate innovation using federal scientific datasets. It will run within the DOE, overseen by the Secretary of Energy. The secretary appointed Under Secretary for Science Darío Gil to run the mission’s day-to-day operations. Both will ultimately report to the president.
Advancing America’s scientific dominance
The mission will involve the DOE’s 17 national laboratories, as well as labs from industry and academia to build an “integrated discovery platform” that will be “the world’s most complex and powerful scientific instrument ever built,” according to a DOE press release.
The mission’s website also lists collaborators, including Microsoft, IBM, OpenAI, Google, Nvidia, Anthropic and AWS.
The Genesis Mission will focus on three initiatives: American energy dominance, advancing discovery science and ensuring national security. Ultimately, the goal is to “develop an integrated platform that connects the world’s best supercomputers, experimental facilities, AI systems and datasets across every major scientific domain to double the productivity and impact of American research and innovation within a decade,” according to the mission’s website.
According to the Associated Press, White House officials said funding for the mission was appropriated to the DOE under the so-called big beautiful bill, which was passed in July.
The public was less than enthusiastic about the announcement, showing their concerns in the comments of the DOE’s X and LinkedIn posts. Comments raised questions about funding, energy and the project’s purpose. Many protested the use of taxpayer dollars for the mission, while others speculated about an AI revolution, drawing parallels to sci-fi movies. Scientists are more enthusiastic, with many sharing their excitement to be involved.
