The US Department of Energy has awarded $159 million across 12 Phase II projects under its Genesis Mission initiative, which trains AI agents and scientific foundation models to accelerate research at the agency's laboratories.

Genesis Mission launched in November 2025. The new awards raise the total number of Phase II projects to 14, with six Phase I projects expected to follow. Winning teams will use DOE supercomputers, cloud-based AI resources, and federal computing infrastructure.

What did the DOE leadership say?

"These projects represent a critical step in turning the promise of AI for science into transformative scientific capability," said DOE under secretary for science Dr. Darío Gil. "The Phase II teams have already demonstrated what is possible when AI is integrated with scientific expertise, data, and computing, and these awards give them the opportunity to take that work to the next level."

Gil added that the program builds on work already underway across the National Labs, universities and industry partners, with the aim of "accelerating the pace of discovery."

Which projects received funding?

The 12 Phase II awards cover fusion, genomics, particle physics, geothermal energy, quantum computing and microchip design:

• SPARC digital twin (Commonwealth Fusion Systems): an AI-enabled digital twin platform to simulate and optimize operations of a fusion demonstration device on the path to commercial fusion energy.
• RNA Structurome (UC San Diego): expands the RNA structure database five-fold to train AI models for engineering resilient crops and sustainable microbes.
• LQCD at the Intelligence Frontier (MIT): integrates AI with supercomputing calculations of fundamental particle physics to accelerate discoveries about the basic building blocks of the universe.
• MAESTRO (UC Irvine): a multi-agent AI platform to map, stimulate and manage deep underground reservoirs for geothermal energy.
• AXIS (University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign): a multiscale framework for redox-active ligand design, targeting more efficient extraction of critical rare-earth elements from domestic sources.
• Ensemble enzyme design (University of Washington Seattle): foundational AI tools to predict and design functional enzymes.
• AXESS (Fermilab): AI-driven design of rugged microchips for extreme conditions such as space, high radiation and ultra-cold environments.
• MOAT-Core (Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory): a shared AI platform across National Laboratories to autonomously run and design particle accelerators.
• ASQC (Harvard University): application-aware error correcting codesign combining AI with advanced quantum hardware.
• AI4HPC (Argonne National Laboratory): an AI framework to modernize, optimize and verify supercomputing scientific software.
• Functional Quantum Magnets (Oak Ridge National Laboratory): a physics-informed AI framework that designs quantum magnets backward from desired properties, with applications in quantum sensing and low-power electronics.
• FRIB agentic assistant (Northeastern University): an automated assistant to streamline operation and tuning of the FRIB particle separator, unlocking hundreds of hours of research time annually.

How much compute backs the awards?

Oak Ridge National Laboratory is providing supercomputing capacity to six of the 12 projects. ORNL director Stephen Streiffer said the selections align with laboratory priorities in AI, quantum, fusion energy, critical materials and user facilities.

"The goal is straightforward — faster, more reliable science that delivers practical results where they matter most," Streiffer said.

What are cloud providers contributing?

Commercial cloud operators have committed $200 million in combined credits and services:

• AWS: up to $50 million in credits over the next three years.
• Crusoe Cloud: $50 million in AI compute and inference credits.
• Microsoft: $40 million in Azure compute and AI credits, plus $20 million in solution engineering enablement services, joining in July 2025.
• Google: $40 million in cloud credits, also pledged in July.

"AI-driven computation is fast becoming the foundational engine of modern scientific discovery," said Crusoe co-founder and CEO Chase Lochmiller. "By committing $50 million in AI compute and inference credits to the Genesis Mission, Crusoe is putting powerful AI infrastructure directly into the hands of federal researchers tackling the nation's biggest challenges in energy and health."