NSF Announces $100 Million for AI Research Institutes

On July 29, 2025, the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF), in partnership with Capital One and Intel, announced a $100 million investment to support five National Artificial Intelligence (AI) Research Institutes and a central community hub. The public-private investment aligns with the White House AI Action Plan and supports the goals in Executive Order 14277, Advancing Artificial Intelligence Education for American Youth. The AI institutes are designed to translate research into practical solutions and help build a national infrastructure for AI education and workforce development.

The awards include funding for two new AI Institutes, the NSF AI-MI and NSF ARIA, and continued funding for work at NSF AIVO, NSF IFML, NSF iSAT, and NSF MMLI.

• NSF AI-Materials Institute (NSF AI-MI). Led by Cornell University, the NSF AI-MI aims to propel foundational AI research to accelerate the discovery of next-generation materials for sustainable energy, electronics, environmental stewardship and quantum technologies. It will create the AI Materials Science Ecosystem, a cloud-based portal that couples a science-ready large language model with multimodal data streams (experimental measurements, simulations, images and textual literature), and implement an educational program that covers AI and materials science across all levels of instruction.
  
  
• NSF AI Research Institute on Interaction for AI Assistants (NSF ARIA). Led by Brown University, the NSF ARIA will accelerate the development of the next-generation AI assistants in the mental and behavioral health field, where trust, empathy and personalization are critical. The project seeks to bring together researchers in computer science, neuroscience, cognitive science, philosophy, law and education together with mental health practitioners and civil society groups, and also grow a future-ready workforce through K-12 and postgraduate training in the technical and ethical dimensions of AI.
  
  
• NSF AI Institutes Virtual Organization (NSF AIVO). Led by the University of California, Davis, the NSF AIVO serves as a national hub for the AI Institutes network. It connects federally funded AI Institutes, government stakeholders and the public, helps form new public-private partnerships and promotes public engagement.
  
  
• NSF AI Institute for Foundations of Machine Learning (NSF IFML). Led by the University of Texas at Austin, the NSF IFML seeks to develop foundational tools and new mathematical theories to advance the state of the art in generative AI. This project will focus on frameworks for modeling AI training and inference to create efficient solutions and develop AI expertise through an online masters initiative and activities targeting high-school students.
  
  
• NSF Institute for Student AI-Teaming (NSF iSAT). Led by the University of Colorado, the NSF iSAT pursues the national need to develop a world-leading AI workforce, using AI in K-12 classrooms to promote student success in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM). This project will design a semester-long program designed to develop students’ AI literacy, along with curriculum-linked professional learning for educators.
  
  
• NSF Molecule Maker Lab Institute (NSF MMLI). Led by the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, the NSF MMLI is dedicated to developing AI tools, automated workflows and educational resources for molecular innovates to accelerate molecular discovery and broaden access to the expertise and mechanics of molecular synthesis. This project seeks to make progress toward fully autonomous molecular discovery and enhance workforce development and expert training.

• Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning
• Technology