DOE Awards $68 Million for AI in Science Across 11 Multi-Institution Projects
March 15, 2026 · 2 min read
Arthur Griffin
The Department of Energy has selected 11 multi-institution projects — 43 awards total — for $68 million in funding to advance artificial intelligence tools purpose-built for scientific research.
The awards, selected through competitive peer review under the "Advancements in Artificial Intelligence for Science" funding opportunity, will run up to three years. DOE committed $20 million in immediate FY2024 dollars, with remaining funding contingent on future appropriations.
What the Projects Will Build
The funded work spans three broad fronts that matter for any lab using or planning to use AI:
Foundation models for science. Several projects will study how large AI models improve as they scale in size and complexity — but specifically for scientific domains, not general-purpose chatbots. The goal is models that can reason about physics, chemistry, and biology with the rigor those fields demand.
Privacy-preserving distributed training. A second cluster of projects tackles a persistent barrier: training AI models on sensitive data spread across multiple institutions without compromising privacy. This could unlock collaborative research on genomic, medical, and classified datasets that individual labs can't access alone.
Energy-efficient AI hardware. A third set explores algorithms designed for next-generation microtechnologies, aiming to reduce the enormous energy footprint of running AI models at research scale.
Where This Fits in DOE's AI Strategy
The $68 million announcement is one piece of a larger DOE push. The department is simultaneously investing $145 million in early career researchers and has previously outlined its Genesis Mission framework for AI grand challenges backed by $320 million.
With DOE's Office of Science holding steady at $8.4 billion in the FY2026 budget, the AI portfolio signals where the department sees its competitive edge: not in building general AI, but in creating specialized tools that accelerate discovery at the 17 national laboratories.
What Researchers Should Do
The funded project list is available on DOE's Advanced Scientific Computing Research homepage. Researchers at institutions not on the current award list should watch for the next funding cycle — DOE has signaled continued investment in AI for science through FY2028.
For scientists exploring how AI grants align with their research, Granted tracks DOE opportunities alongside hundreds of other federal and foundation funders.