NSF renews support for MIT-led AI and physics center, expands new discovery model | MIT News

The MIT-led Institute for Artificial Intelligence and Fundamental Interactions (IAIFI) has received renewed support from the National Science Foundation (NSF) for an additional five years, increasing annual funding from $4 million to $4.98 million. The renewal marks a new phase for IAIFI, which has spent its first five years building a research model and an interdisciplinary community at the center: that AI can open new ways to do physics, while physics can help shape better AI systems.

Founded in 2020 as part of the National Artificial Intelligence Research Institutes program, IAIFI includes researchers from MIT, as well as Harvard, Northeastern, Tufts, and Boston universities. Its work has shown that machine learning can accelerate discoveries in physics, while insights from physics can make AI systems more principled and explainable.

“From the beginning, IAIFI has been built around a two-way street: AI making better physics, and physics enabling better AI,” said Jesse Thaler, director of IAIFI and professor of physics at MIT. “We’ve seen this virtuous cycle play out in many areas of physics and AI over the past five years. Trade-offs produce not only new results, but new ways of doing science.”

Research in all physics and AI

IAIFI’s research includes particle physics, nuclear physics, astrophysics, and basic AI, with many advances coming from collaboration across those areas.

In particle physics, IAIFI researchers have developed AI methods to handle large amounts of data from the Large Hadron Collider in real time, helping to turn the firehose of collision data into actionable physics. In nuclear physics, IAIFI researchers use AI-based generative methods to model the interactions of quarks and gluons in lattice quantum chromodynamics, creating new ways to study the structure of matter from first principles. In astrophysics, machine learning is used to uncover new cosmic phenomena and improve the sensitivity of the LIGO-led gravitational-wave experiment.

At the same time, ideas from physics inform the development of new AI methods. IAIFI researchers are developing learning algorithms and new model structures that embed physics knowledge and leading methods – including symmetries, geometric structures, accuracy guarantees, and statistical methods – directly into neural networks, producing highly reliable, interpretable, and data-driven systems.

“AI has begun to change the way physicists approach some of the most difficult problems in the field,” said Mike Williams, interim director of IAIFI and professor of physics at MIT. “More importantly, it’s starting to expand the boundaries of what problems we can realistically tackle, making it possible to pursue questions that were beyond our control.”

Training the next generation

A defining feature of IAIFI is its investment in people. The IAIFI Postdoctoral Fellows program supports young scientists pursuing research at the intersection of physics and AI, pairing individuals with mentors in both fields and fostering collaboration across institutions.

Eight partners have completed the program so far. Three have received professional positions; others have taken research roles at leading AI companies or joined startups, showing how well the skills cultivated at IAIFI translate.

“The IAIFI Fellowship shows what can happen when young scientists are given the freedom and support to work across traditional boundaries,” said Phiala Shanahan, IAIFI interim deputy director and professor of physics at MIT. “Our partners don’t just contribute to physics or AI separately – they help build a growing field at the intersection.”

The annual PhD Summer School of the IAIFI has become the center of a growing community of “hundred scientists” with expertise in both physics and AI. For the 2026 program, the program received nearly 600 applications for nearly 100 places, and about 300 more participants are expected to join. Previous participants have highly recommended the school to their peers for its combination of courses, hands-on tutorials, coding sprints, and networking events.

At MIT, IAIFI has helped to shape new educational methods, including a PhD program for various courses in physics, mathematics, and data science – a collaboration between the Department of Physics and the Center for Mathematics and Data Science – which has awarded 20 doctorates as of 2021. IAIFI members Phil Harris and Isaac Chuang have developed a science course in physics both (Course 8.16) and as a free online course through MITx.

A growing community

Besides its main research and training programs, IAIFI invites researchers through its annual summer workshop, which will be held this year at the MIT Schwarzman College of Computing building. The center also engages the wider community through partnerships with the MIT Museum, the Museum of Science in Boston, hackathons, and widely viewed online content exploring AI and physics.

“IAIFI shows what happens when researchers in physics, computation, statistics, and data science work together on shared scientific questions,” said Nergis Mavalvala, dean of the MIT School of Science and the Curtis and Kathleen Marble Professor of Astrophysics. “That kind of ongoing, cross-disciplinary collaboration is critical to the future of scientific discovery.”

IAIFI is hosted at the Nuclear Science Laboratory at MIT, led by Director Jesse Thaler (currently on sabbatical), Interim Director Mike Williams, Interim Deputy Director Phiala Shanahan, and Executive Director Marisa LaFleur, with steering committee members Lisa Barsotti, Isaac Chuang, Will Detmold, Bill Freeman, Phil Harrith, Linacis and Linacis Marija steering committee members from other IAIFI universities).

Looking ahead

As a member of the National Artificial Intelligence Research Institutes program, IAIFI is part of a national effort to advance AI-driven discovery and innovation.

“The connections between the NSF AI Institutes have been as valuable as the work within them and continue to grow,” said Marisa LaFleur, IAIFI executive director. “We share management strategies and training resources, community building, and collaboration that make the entire network stronger.”

For IAIFI, the renewed funding is an opportunity to delve deeper into what the institute calls “the physics of AI” – using physical reasoning, physical challenges, and physical tools not just to use AI, but to understand and improve it. That agenda, along with a growing community of cross-disciplinary researchers, is driving the next phase of the institute.

“The first phase of IAIFI established a model: interdisciplinary research, early talent, and a dynamic community, organized around the idea that AI and physics make each other stronger,” Thaler said. “We now have the foundation – and the entrepreneurial spirit of our centaur scientists – to push that model into new territory and expand our ambitions.”