The U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) is establishing a new operations center to serve as the backbone of the National Artificial Intelligence Research Resource (NAIRR), a public-private effort to expand access to advanced artificial intelligence (AI) research capabilities.
The NSF National Artificial Intelligence Research Resource Operations Center (NAIRR-OC) will coordinate participating resource providers, integrate computing, data, models, and tools, operate the national NAIRR portal, and provide training and support to users, according to a Sept. 1 NSF press release.
“The center will also gather input from the research community to continually improve NAIRR’s capabilities and lead the transition of appropriate functions from the NAIRR pilot into the long-term national infrastructure,” NSF said.
NSF launched the NAIRR pilot in January 2024. Since then, it has supported more than 800 research projects and thousands of innovators and students nationwide. More than 25 private-sector partners have participated, according to NSF.
The San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC) at the University of California San Diego will lead NAIRR-OC in collaboration with the Texas Advanced Computing Center at The University of Texas at Austin.
UC San Diego also leads the NSF-supported National Data Platform and National Research Platform, while The University of Texas at Austin will lead the NSF Leadership-Class Computing Facility.
NSF said the institutions bring experience operating national-scale research infrastructure and coordinating complex, multi-year initiatives.
“The NAIRR-OC is an important step toward making advanced AI resources genuinely usable by researchers, educators and students across the country,” Frank Würthwein, SDSC director and NAIRR-OC principal investigator and director, said in a press release from UC San Diego.
“By expanding access, we can enable ambitious ideas and discoveries that might otherwise remain out of reach,” Würthwein said.
NAIRR-OC will also work with projects supported through three related NSF programs.
The State and Regional AI Infrastructure Hubs program is intended to expand regional access to computing resources and build the workforce needed to use them. The Integrated Data Systems and Services program supports national-scale data infrastructure for AI-driven research, while the Unlocking Dataset Value for AI-Enabled Scientific Discovery initiative focuses on making existing scientific datasets more useful for AI research.
NSF said connecting those regional resources, national data systems, and scientific datasets with NAIRR capabilities will help build a broader national ecosystem for AI-enabled scientific discovery.
The operations center will also continue NAIRR’s public-private partnership model by working closely with federal and private-sector resource providers.
“NAIRR-OC will build on this progress by transforming successful elements of the pilot into a sustained national capability,” NSF said.
Earlier this year, a bipartisan group of senators reintroduced legislation to formally establish the NAIRR as the pilot program continues into its second year without permanent status.