By Courtney Rozen
WASHINGTON, July 22 (Reuters) - The U.S. will spend $5 billion to tackle long-standing scientific problems across multiple fields using AI, the Trump administration said in a statement on Wednesday.
The agencies will use the funding to identify the root causes of chronic diseases, accelerate drug discovery and develop longer-lasting building materials, among other tasks, according to the statement.
Scientists will have access to the Department of Energy's supercomputers, AI and specialized
datasets, along with other components needed to run experiments using algorithms, said Michael Kratsios, chief technology adviser to U.S. President Donald Trump, in an interview with Reuters.
Fifteen federal agencies will be involved in the project, including the Departments of Health and Human Services, Energy, Transportation, Defense and Interior.
"The White House is helping bring together all of the different agencies that work on different domains to make them part of this larger effort on AI for science," Kratsios said.
The Trump administration also plans to overhaul how the U.S. government funds federal research by supporting more individual scientists and the use of AI, rather than universities, according to a White House report released Tuesday night, authored by Kratsios. This would give the Trump administration more control over how the money is used.
"Federal support for science must be politically accountable," the report said.
During his second term Trump has tried to exert more control over how federal research dollars are allocated. Federal courts have pushed back, with an appeals panel saying in January the Trump administration cannot cut federal grant funding provided by the National Institutes of Health to universities engaged in scientific and medical research.
AI models need data to identify patterns, generate predictions and automate decisions. The U.S. government is home to some of the largest data sets in the world, including records about chemicals, critical minerals and patient health.
The $5 billion research initiative is an opportunity to train AI models on that information and use those algorithms to answer scientific questions, Kratsios said.
Microsoft will donate $40 million in AI computing credits over three years to support the effort, according to a company statement.
(Reporting by Courtney Rozen; Editing by Stephen Coates)
