President Donald Trump signed an executive order Monday establishing the “Genesis Mission,” a national initiative to harness AI for scientific breakthroughs, comparing its scope to the Manhattan Project that produced the atomic bomb during World War II.
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AFP reports: The plan is part of the Trump administration’s aggressive, low-regulation strategy to boost big tech’s race to stay ahead of China on artificial intelligence and cement US dominance in the fast-expanding field.
The White House is also seeking ways to legally stop US states from implementing their own AI regulations and has threatened to rescind federal aid to states that do so.
The order on Monday tasked the Department of Energy with building an integrated AI platform that will combine the nation’s supercomputers, federal scientific datasets and research facilities to accelerate discovery in fields ranging from nuclear fusion to semiconductor manufacturing.
“America is in a race for global technology dominance in the development of artificial intelligence,” the order stated, describing AI as “an important frontier of scientific discovery and economic growth.”
The centerpiece of the initiative is the “American Science and Security Platform,” which will provide researchers access to high-performance computing resources, AI modeling tools and vast federal datasets to train scientific foundation models and automate research.
The platform aims to demonstrate initial operating capability within nine months for at least one major scientific challenge from a list of 20 priorities the Energy Department will draw up within 60 days.
Priority domains include advanced manufacturing, biotechnology, critical materials, nuclear energy, quantum computing and semiconductors — all areas where the United States faces growing competition from China.
The order calls for partnerships with private companies, universities and national laboratories, while mandating strict cybersecurity measures to protect sensitive research.