The US Department of Energy (DOE) has announced a roadmap for the Frontiers in Artificial Intelligence for Science, Security, and Technology (FASST) initiative to help harness AI for the public good.
The US government must develop capabilities for this technology, and through FASST, DOE and its 17 national laboratories aim to build the world's most powerful integrated scientific AI systems for science, energy, and national security, in collaboration with academic and industry partners.
US Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm comments: “Artificial intelligence is an innovative technology that can help unleash breakthroughs in energy technologies and enhance our national security. FASST builds on DOE's role as the nation's steward of advanced supercomputing and research infrastructure across our 17 national labs to provide a national capability in AI and enable technological breakthroughs for decades to come.”
The roadmap outlines the key DOE infrastructure it leverages, the assets it will deliver for the national interest, and its organising framework for providing a national AI capability. FASST will transform the vast repositories of scientific data produced at DOE user facilities to be AI-ready and build the next generation of highly energy-efficient AI supercomputers.
This national AI capability will allow US researchers, including the 40,000 scientists at the national labs, to develop trustworthy foundation AI models to realise breakthroughs in various scientific and energy applications. From discovering new battery materials to deploying smart grid infrastructure to even realising breakthroughs in fusion, AI can help accelerate scientific discoveries and enable new, affordable, clean energy technologies. These capabilities will also be leveraged to provide insight into the properties of AI systems at scale and promote safety, security, trustworthiness, and privacy.
The DOE has demonstrated early successes with AI for scientific breakthroughs through the national laboratories.
- Lawrence Livermore National Lab announced clinical trials for a cancer drug designed with AI and supercomputing infrastructure in partnership with BridgeBio
- Pacific Northwest National Lab announced the discovery of a new battery material with AI, in partnership with Microsoft
- And many more foundation models are already being developed across the DOE enterprise
FASST intends to build on these early successes and the history of successful public-private partnerships at DOE to provide a national AI capability to meet the nation’s national security, energy security, and scientific discovery mission needs.
