U.S. National Science Foundation-supported researchers are behind an educational effort to introduce artificial intelligence techniques to elementary school children. Educator Carrie Robledo discusses her project, “AI Insect Detectives,” and experience as a 2026 Presidential AI Challenge national champion.

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Tiffany Barnes, Shiyan Jiang and Xiaoyi Tian discuss their U.S. National Science Foundation-supported project “ElementaryAI,” the challenges of introducing artificial intelligence concepts into elementary school curriculum and how the project led to a win in the inaugural Presidential AI Challenge.

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Understanding and wielding the quantum properties of nature is the ambitious objective of eight research institutes that will collectively receive more than $290 million from the U.S. National Science Foundation. The investment is an expansion of the NSF Quantum Leap Challenge Institutes program, which NSF created in 2020 as part of the agency’s strategy to fulfill the 2018 “National Quantum Initiative Act.”

Of the eight institutes, three are newly formed. The other five were established with previous NSF funding and will receive renewed funding from NSF to continue their work. Each institute will receive between about $28 and $37 million over five years and is helmed by researchers in quantum information science.

Since 2020, the institutes have made major scientific strides in a range of areas, from finding new ways to make quantum computers to developing quantum sensors that could one day enable earlier detection of diseases. The institutes also serve as a productive nexus between scientists, federal science agencies, quantum technology companies and educational organizations.

“For more than four decades, NSF has been laying the foundational groundwork of research and discovery that is powering today’s modern quantum computing, sensing and communication,” said Brian Stone, Performing the Duties of the NSF Director. “It’s time for focused activities to leverage that base of knowledge to drive us even farther forward to the benefit of all Americans.

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