MIT projects have been selected for funding under the US Department of Energy’s Genesis Mission MIT News
MIT researchers are set to contribute to the US Department of Energy’s (DOE) Genesis Mission, with 15 collaborative projects among those nominated for funding under Phase I of Genesis, the DOE announced Wednesday.
The Genesis Mission, a national initiative, aims to build “the world’s most powerful integrated science discovery platform” by fostering interdisciplinary collaboration to develop AI, supercomputing, quantum systems, and advanced scientific tools to accelerate breakthroughs in energy, scientific discovery, and national security.
“MIT researchers are proud to lead and contribute to projects under the Genesis Mission, in key research areas that support national priorities,” said Ian A. Waitz, MIT’s vice president for research. “The Genesis Mission represents a great opportunity to leverage the power of US universities, industry, and national laboratories to advance science, technology, and innovation for the benefit of the nation and the world.”
The DOE announced the first projects during its Genesis Summit in Washington on Wednesday. Research funding to MIT is pending completion of negotiations regarding the award agreement for each project. In Phase I, funded project teams will work to demonstrate a research workflow that integrates AI with scientific inquiry, and rigorously evaluate the scientific validity of their approach.
Projects under the Genesis Mission are collaborative in design; teams should draw on the knowledge of researchers from higher education institutions, industry, and/or national laboratories. Among the phase I projects selected with the involvement of MIT are those that aim to develop powerful quantum sensors to help explain fundamental questions about the universe; advance knowledge of chemical-free methods of extracting rare earth elements; model plasma behavior in fusion tokamaks and future fusion reactors; develop digital twins of integrated magnetic systems; use self-assembly of biomolecules to design materials with targeted properties; typically design rotating blades for mechanical systems; and more. Phase I projects identify promising pathways to high-scale transformative energy that may be considered by DOE for further Genesis Mission funding.
Six of the selected projects will be led by MIT principal investigators (PIs):
- AI-Driven Discovery of Electrochemical Separation Methods for Rare Earth Elements
MIT Leader: Martin Bazant (Department of Chemical Engineering, ChemE), Chevron Professor in Chemical Engineering and professor of mathematics - AI for Learning the Basic Structure Missing in Fracture Models
MIT Leader: Laurent Demanet (Department of Earth, Space and Planetary Sciences), professor of applied mathematics in the Department of Mathematics and co-director of the MIT Center for Computational Science and Engineering - An AI-Driven Quantum Sensor for Precision Testing of Fundamental Physics
MIT Leader: Ronald Garcia Ruiz (Laboratory for Nuclear Science, LNS), associate professor of physics and Thomas A. Frank (1977) Career Development Professor - Multi-Agent Inverse Design of Block Polypeptoids in Hierarchical Nanostructures
MIT Leader: Bradley Olsen (ChemE), Alexander and I. Michael Kasser (1960) Prof - CATALYST: Core Accelerated Trajectories for Augmented Learning by Sim-to-experiment Transfer
MIT Leader: Cristina Rea (Plasma Science and Fusion Center), principal research scientist and head of the data science division - Multi-Modal and Multi-Facility Applications of the FM4NPP Foundation Model: Silicon Trackers and Electron Colliders
MIT Leader: Gunther Roland (LNS), professor of physics and head of the department of nuclear and particle physics
MIT researchers are expected to participate in nine other selected projects led by other institutions, companies and labs:
- Design Framework for a Rotary Blade Optimized Using Manufacturing Engineering (FORGE)
Project leader: GE Vernova Advanced Research Center
MIT Leader: Faez Ahmed (Department of Mechanical Engineering), associate professor of mechanical engineering and the Esther and Harold E. Edgerton Career Development Professor - Superconducting Polychronous Computation Near Criticality
Project leader: Argonne National Laboratory
MIT Leader: Karl Berggren (Electronics Research Laboratory), Julius A. Stratton Professor of Electrical Engineering and Physics - Scalable Agetic Digital Twins for Autonomous Precision Services
Project leader: Texas A&M University
MIT Leader: Ronald Garcia Ruiz (LNS) - Agent AI for Accelerated Real-Time Discovery from Complex EIC Data Streams
Project leader: Purdue University
MIT Leader: Philip Harris (LNS), associate professor of physics - Self-Drive Discovery and Integrated Design of MXene Memristors for 3D Compute-in-Memory Systems
Project leader: Northeastern University
MIT Leader: Ju Li (Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering, NSE), Carl Richard Soderberg Professor in Power Engineering and professor of materials science and engineering - WILD: An AI-Driven Workflow for Intelligent Lab Discovery
Project leader: Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL)
MIT Leader: Ju Li (NSE) - An AI-Based Framework for Improving Hydropower Security
Project leader: LBNL
MIT Leader: Haruko Wainwright (NSE), Atlantic Richfield Career Development Professor in Energy Studies, assistant professor of nuclear science and engineering, and assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering. - AI-Driven Platform for HLW Repository Design and Analysis with Digital Twins, GIS Data Integration, and Surrogate Models
Project leader: LBNL
MIT Leader: Haruko Wainwright (NSE) - Toward Physics-Informed Twins Digital for Fusion Magnet Systems
Project leader: LBNL
MIT Leader: Holger Witte (LNS), associate director of MIT’s Bates Research and Engineering Center.
“The extraordinary response to the Genesis Mission application process shows that the American scientific community is ready to rethink how discovery happens,” said DOE Under Secretary Darío Gil SM ’00 PhD ’03, in a DOE announcement. “Through the Genesis Mission, we are bringing together the nation’s leading researchers, institutions, and technology partners to build the next generation of scientific talent. We look forward to seeing these teams demonstrate new research workflows that accelerate discovery and reveal what’s possible when AI and science advance together.”
A complete list of early Genesis Mission projects selected for award discussions is available from the US Department of Energy.
