The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory has been awarded funding to lead and collaborate on a sweeping portfolio of artificial intelligence (AI)-driven research projects that will accelerate discovery on some of the nation’s most complex challenges and redefine how scientists harness AI at the frontiers of science and technology.

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Argonne has been awarded funding to lead and collaborate on a sweeping portfolio of AI-driven research projects that will accelerate discovery on some of the nation’s most complex challenges and redefine how scientists harness AI. (Image by Argonne National Laboratory)

Argonne’s newest Genesis Mission projects will use AI to accelerate nuclear energy deployment, improve energy systems and grid reliability, predict water availability and extreme weather with unprecedented precision, unlock new frontiers in quantum sensing and microelectronics, secure the integrity of scientific workflows and infrastructure, and more.

The Genesis Mission is a historic national initiative led by DOE, which is building the world’s most powerful integrated science discovery platform. By uniting government, industry, academia and philanthropy, it is accelerating breakthroughs in energy research, scientific discovery and national security through a new platform that combines AI, supercomputing, quantum systems and advanced scientific instruments.

“The Genesis Mission represents an important step toward a new era of AI-integrated scientific discovery,” said Argonne Director Paul Kearns. ​“This investment will empower our researchers and partners to pursue bold ideas, accelerate innovation and deliver scientific breakthroughs that will benefit the nation and the world.”

The new research teams are multidisciplinary partnerships with industry, academia and national laboratories. Argonne is leading projects that will:

• Create digital twins — virtual models powered by AI — to speed up nuclear fuel recycling and simplify regulatory approval.
• Deliver more accurate forecasts of water availability and flood risks, helping ensure reliable energy and infrastructure planning.
• Advance AI-driven prediction of precipitation and extreme weather events to reveal new insights into how Earth’s systems behave.
• Use AI to design microelectronics that operate at extremely low temperatures and with superconducting materials, opening the door to faster, more efficient devices.
• Optimize quantum circuit design for nuclear physics, enabling more powerful simulations and advancing quantum computing for science.
• Make quantum sensors even more sensitive and accurate with the aid of AI, advancing how we measure and detect things at the smallest scales.
• Streamline and prioritize experiments in nuclear astrophysics with AI, accelerating discovery about the universe.
• Protect the integrity of scientific research and data by developing advanced AI-powered cybersecurity tools.

Argonne is also a partner in Prometheus, an initiative led by DOE’s Idaho National Laboratory. The project aims to revolutionize nuclear energy deployment by integrating agentic AI across the entire lifecycle — from design and licensing to manufacturing and operations. This collaborative effort leverages advanced digital twins, AI-driven workflows and industry expertise to support DOE’s mission for reliable, abundant nuclear energy in the United States.

The new research projects will deliver foundational AI capabilities that will support the Genesis Mission platform and accelerate cross-cutting scientific discovery. This includes developing advanced scientific workflows, digital twins, agentic AI systems and trustworthy AI infrastructure for managing experiments, tracking data history and spotting unusual patterns.

Argonne’s expertise in supercomputing, data management and collaborative platforms will provide the computational backbone for integrating AI into large-scale scientific research.

The goal of the awards announced today is to identify promising pathways toward transformative scientific capabilities and establish a foundation for future investment and scale. Project teams will design and demonstrate research workflows that integrate AI with scientific investigation, while rigorously evaluating whether those approaches can accelerate discovery, improve predictive capabilities, enhance experimentation or generate new scientific insights.

Additional details about Argonne’s Genesis Mission projects are available here.

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