Stony Brook Mobilizes for National AI Research Mission

When the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) launched the Genesis Mission, major research universities across the United States, including the State University of New York at Stony Brook, had only weeks to do what they often spend months preparing for: identify faculty expertise across the institution, build interdisciplinary teams, align proposals with national priorities, secure external partners, manage internal review, adapt to shifting federal requirements and submit a coordinated response at scale.

Stony Brook responded with 89 proposal submissions.

That number became the focus of a May 15 gathering hosted by the Office for Research and Innovation (ORI) to recognize the principal investigators, co-principal investigators, research administrators, department staff, college and center teams, compliance staff and budget officers who contributed to the university’s Genesis Mission response. The event was both a recognition of an extraordinary effort and a reflection on what the experience revealed about Stony Brook’s research enterprise.

President Andrea Goldsmith and Mónica Bugallo, interim vice president for research and innovation, praised the campus-wide response as a defining example of Stony Brook’s capacity to move quickly, collaborate broadly and compete for opportunities tied to the nation’s most urgent scientific and technological priorities.

“I am truly in awe of the efforts of our Office for Research and Innovation and all of you,” Goldsmith said. “Eighty-nine submissions. That’s remarkable.”

The DOE describes the Genesis Mission as a national initiative to build “the world’s most powerful scientific platform,” bringing together national laboratories, industry, academia and other partners to use artificial intelligence to accelerate breakthroughs in energy, discovery science and national security. The mission is organized around national science and technology challenges and is intended to connect supercomputers, experimental facilities, AI systems and unique datasets to address critical problems at unprecedented speed. Applicants chose between applying for Phase I or Phase II applications based on their readiness and team size, with successful Phase I proposals having the opportunity to apply for Phase II in the near future. 

For Stony Brook, the call arrived as both an opportunity and a test.

Stony Brook’s Genesis Mission Response

The federal funding opportunity was released on March 17. Stony Brook launched its limited competition on March 20, closed the internal competition on March 30, and submitted Phase I applications and Phase II letters of intent by May 1, following a DOE modification that added three days to the original deadline. The final response included 40 Stony Brook-led proposals and 49 proposals in which Stony Brook participated as a partner non-lead institution. All 40 Stony Brook-led applications were Phase I proposals. The non-lead submissions included 46 Phase I applications and three Phase II applications.

The breadth of the response reflected the extent of the university’s research strengths. Stony Brook-led applications spanned 16 Genesis Mission topic areas, including advanced manufacturing, biotechnology, critical minerals, fusion energy, quantum algorithms, quantum systems, microelectronics, data centers, autonomous laboratories, materials discovery, particle accelerators, physics, grid optimization, high-performance computing, scientific reasoning and AI for fluid flow in energy technologies.

Many of the proposals were built around new or expanded collaborations. Among Stony Brook-led applications, 28 included collaborations with Brookhaven National Laboratory, 16 involved other national laboratories and 14 included industry partners. Ten of the industry-partnered proposals also included a national laboratory partner. External partners listed in the university’s response included Ames, Argonne, Jefferson, Lawrence Berkeley, Oak Ridge, Pacific Northwest, Sandia, Savannah River and SLAC national laboratories, along with companies and organizations such as Amazon Web Services, Dominion Energy, Eversource Energy, GE Vernova, IBM Quantum, IBM Research and NVIDIA.

Goldsmith emphasized that the significance of the effort extends beyond the outcome of any individual proposal.

“When I think about this milestone, it isn’t just about the funding that we may or may not get from the Department of Energy,” Goldsmith said. “It’s about the conversations that this call for proposals sparked, the new collaborations with industry and national labs, and what that will mean for Stony Brook going forward in terms of being a national leader in using AI for research.”

Read more from Stephen Pallas on SBU News.