NSF Backs $24.5M FabAID Project in $83M AI Data Push
Updated
Updated · morgridge.org · Jul 23
NSF Backs $24.5M FabAID Project in $83M AI Data Push
3 articles · Updated · morgridge.org · Jul 23
Summary
$24.5 million of the NSF's new funding will go to FabAID, a five-year project led by the Morgridge Institute, UW-Madison and five partner universities.
FabAID aims to knit together distributed data repositories, computing resources and AI services so researchers can more easily share, move and process data for AI-driven science.
More than 15 full-time employees will support the effort at the Madison campus, building on UW-Madison and Morgridge work in throughput computing, including Pelican and HTCondor.
The project is one of two flagship awards within NSF's broader $83 million IDSS investment to create an AI-capable national data backbone linked to cyberinfrastructure such as NAIRR.
As the U.S. invests $83M in AI data systems, is the real barrier to innovation a lack of human skills, not technology?
With millions invested in public AI data, how will equitable access be guaranteed for smaller institutions against entrenched interests?
Transforming U.S. Science: $83 Million NSF Investment Unifies Data for AI-Driven Research
Overview
The U.S. National Science Foundation has launched an $83 million investment through its Integrated Data Systems and Services (IDSS) program to tackle a major challenge in research: scientific data is scattered across many incompatible repositories, making it hard for AI models to access and use this information. By streamlining data access and organization, the IDSS program aims to build organized scientific datasets, reduce the time researchers spend on managing infrastructure, and unlock the full potential of AI in scientific discovery. This effort is set to accelerate research and strengthen U.S. leadership in AI.