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The U.S. National Science Foundation has announced two new Dear Colleague Letters (DCL) and one program solicitation that implement key elements of the Trump administration’s executive order, “Advancing Artificial Intelligence Education for American Youth.” The new opportunities will take decisive steps to expand resources for K-12 AI education, enhance teacher training and harness AI tools and services to improve science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) teaching and learning.

“For decades, NSF has invested in research projects designed to transform STEM teaching and learning to meet emerging needs like AI. Integrating AI into education systems helps to prepare both young and adult learners to contribute to an AI-driven society,” said NSF Assistant Director for STEM Education James L. Moore III. “With these new funding mechanisms, NSF will fast-track its efforts to provide early exposure to AI, scale AI curricula, expand services that support the use of AI in education, advance teacher professional development and improve knowledge sharing in AI education to help sustain the nation’s leadership in technological innovation.”

Dear Colleague Letters

The Expanding K-12 Resources for AI Education DCL seeks to build upon NSF’s extensive investments in fundamental research, technology transition and education related to the science and application of AI. Existing awardees with K-12 AI or computer science education experience are invited to submit supplemental funding proposals to refine, scale, and/or implement established K-12 AI-related activities.

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The U.S. National Science Foundation announced a partnership with NVIDIA to develop a set of artificial intelligence models that will transform the ability of America’s scientists to leverage AI, advancing scientific discovery and ensuring U.S. leadership in AI-powered research and innovation. NSF will contribute $75 million, with NVIDIA providing an additional $77 million, to support the Open Multimodal AI Infrastructure to Accelerate Science (OMAI) project, led by the Allen Institute for AI (Ai2). The collaboration will create a fully open suite of advanced AI models specifically designed to support the U.S. scientific community.

This public-private investment advances priorities set forth in the White House AI Action Plan to accelerate AI-enabled science and ensure the United States is producing the leading open models that enhance America’s global AI dominance.

“Bringing AI into scientific research has been a game changer,” said Brian Stone, performing the duties of the NSF director. “NSF is proud to partner with NVIDIA to equip America’s scientists with the tools to accelerate breakthroughs. These investments are not just about enabling innovation; they are about securing U.S. global leadership in science and technology and tackling challenges once thought impossible.”

The development of AI technologies is advancing rapidly, but the cost of creating and researching powerful AI models has grown beyond the budgets of university labs and federally funded researchers. This growing divide limits the

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A workforce fluent in AI techniques will be essential to ensure U.S. leadership in artificial intelligence continues. Jeremy Waisome, an assistant professor at the University of Florida, discusses the Shark AI project, which has introduced artificial intelligence and machine learning techniques to thousands of middle school students.

Listen to NSF Discovery Files wherever you get your podcasts.

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The U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) has announced six major awards through its EPSCoR Research Infrastructure Improvement Program: Focused EPSCoR Collaborations (FEC), investing $29.2 million across 11 jurisdictions to strengthen research capacity and drive translational research across the nation.

These four-year awards aim to catalyze transformative research and infrastructure enhancement in states historically underfunded in federal research. The selected projects span critical areas, including use-inspired research in the study of Earth systems, wildfire management, water resource management, ecosystem and human health risks, functionality of electronic devices, biotechnology and artificial intelligence-driven health care.

“These EPSCoR FEC awards are an example of NSF’s commitment to ensuring that all states and jurisdictions across the United States have the opportunity to be part of our research enterprise and benefit from the jobs and economic prosperity that result from American innovation,” said Brian Stone, performing the duties of the NSF director. “These multi-state collaborative teams are tackling real-world research challenges that matter to the citizens of their regions while also building competitive research environments for the entire nation.”

This year’s FEC awards include:

Optical properties of mineral dust aerosols: Building capacity for use-inspired applications through experimental and theoretical investigations (Nevada System of Higher Education – Desert Research Institute, University of Oklahoma Norman Campus and University of Wyoming) — Mineral dust aerosols are significant in the atmosphere, affecting radiative forcing, ecosystem fertilization,

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