MIT researchers are set to contribute to the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Genesis Mission, with 15 collaborative projects amongst those chosen for funding under Genesis Phase I, DOE announced Wednesday.
The Genesis Mission, a national initiative, intends to construct “the world’s strongest integrated science discovery platform” by incentivizing cross-sector collaborations that leverage AI, supercomputing, quantum systems, and advanced scientific instruments to speed up breakthroughs in energy, scientific discovery, and national security.
“MIT researchers are proud to be leading and contributing to projects under the Genesis Mission, in vital areas of research that support national priorities,” says Ian A. Waitz, MIT’s vp for research. “The Genesis Mission represents a improbable opportunity to catalyze the facility of universities, industry, and the U.S. national laboratories to advance science, technology, and innovation for the advantage of the nation and the world.”
The DOE announced the initial projects during its Genesis Summit in Washington on Wednesday. The research funding to MIT is pending completion of negotiations toward an award agreement for every project. In phase I, funded project teams will work to exhibit research workflows that integrate AI with scientific investigation, and to carefully evaluate the scientific merit of their approach.
Projects under the Genesis Mission are collaborative by design; teams must draw on the expertise of researchers from academia, industry, and/or the national laboratories. Among the many chosen phase I projects with MIT involvement are people who aim to develop powerful quantum sensors to assist explain fundamental questions on the universe; advance knowledge of chemical-free methods to extract rare earth elements; model the behavior of plasma in fusion tokamaks and future fusion reactors; develop digital twins for fusion magnet systems; exploit the self-assembly of biomolecules to design materials with targeted properties; generatively design rotating blades for machinery systems; and more. Phase I projects that discover promising pathways toward transformative capabilities at scale could also be considered by DOE for further Genesis Mission funding.
Six of the chosen projects are to be led by MIT principal investigators (PIs):
- AI-Driven Discovery of Electrochemical Separation Methods for Rare Earth Elements
MIT lead: Martin Bazant (Department of Chemical Engineering, ChemE), Chevron Professor in Chemical Engineering and professor of mathematics
- AI for Learning Missing Constitutive Structure in Fracture Models
MIT lead: Laurent Demanet (Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences), professor of applied mathematics within the Department of Mathematics and co-director of the MIT Center for Computational Science and Engineering
- AI-Driven Quantum Sensing for Precision Tests of Fundamental Physics
MIT lead: Ronald Garcia Ruiz (Laboratory for Nuclear Science, LNS), associate professor of physics and Thomas A. Frank (1977) Profession Development Professor
- Multi-Agent Inverse Design of Block Polypeptoids Into Hierarchical Nanostructures
MIT lead: Bradley Olsen (ChemE), Alexander and I. Michael Kasser (1960) Professor
- CATALYST: Core Accelerated Trajectories with Augmented Learning bY Sim-to-experiment Transfer
MIT lead: Cristina Rea (Plasma Science and Fusion Center), principal research scientist and division head for data science
- Multi-Modal and Multi-Facility Application of the FM4NPP Foundation Model: Silicon Trackers and Electron Colliders
MIT lead: Gunther Roland (LNS), professor of physics and division head for experimental nuclear and particle physics
MIT researchers are expected to take part in one other nine chosen projects led by other institutions, firms, and labs:
- Framework for Optimized Rotating Blade Design Using Generative Engineering (FORGE)
Project lead: GE Vernova Advanced Research Center
MIT lead: Faez Ahmed (Department of Mechanical Engineering), associate professor of mechanical engineering and the Esther and Harold E. Edgerton Profession Development Professor
- Superconducting Polychronous Computation Near Criticality
Project lead: Argonne National Laboratory
MIT lead: Karl Berggren (Research Laboratory of Electronics), the Julius A. Stratton Professor in Electrical Engineering and Physics
- Scalable Agentic Digital Twins for Autonomous Precision Facilities
Project lead: Texas A&M University
MIT lead: Ronald Garcia Ruiz (LNS)
- Agentic AI for Real-Time Expedited Discovery from High-Complexity EIC Data Streams
Project lead: Purdue University
MIT lead: Philip Harris (LNS), associate professor of physics
- Self-Driving Discovery and Co-Design of MXene Memristors for 3D Compute-in-Memory Systems
Project lead: Northeastern University
MIT lead: Ju Li (Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering, NSE), the Carl Richard Soderberg Professor in Power Engineering and professor of materials science and engineering
- A-WILD: AI-driven Workflows for Intelligent Lab Discovery
Project lead: Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL)
MIT lead: Ju Li (NSE)
- A Foundational Generative AI Framework to Advance Water-Energy Security
Project lead: LBNL
MIT lead: Haruko Wainwright (NSE), Atlantic Richfield Profession Development Professor in Energy Studies, assistant professor of nuclear science and engineering, and assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering
- An AI-Driven Platform for HLW Repository Design and Evaluation with Digital Twins, GIS Data Integration, and Surrogate Models
Project lead: LBNL
MIT lead: Haruko Wainwright (NSE)
- Toward Physics-Informed Digital Twins for Fusion Magnet Systems
Project lead: LBNL
MIT lead: Holger Witte (LNS), associate director of MIT’s Bates Research and Engineering Center.
“The extraordinary response to this Genesis Mission application process demonstrates that America’s scientific community is able to reimagine how discovery happens,” said DOE Under Secretary Darío Gil SM ’00 PhD ’03, within the DOE’s announcement. “Through the Genesis Mission, we’re bringing together the nation’s leading researchers, institutions, and technology partners to construct the subsequent generation of scientific capability. We stay up for seeing these teams exhibit latest research workflows that speed up discovery and reveal what is feasible when AI and science advance together.”
An entire list of the primary Genesis Mission projects chosen for award negotiations is available from the U.S. Department of Energy.