The National Science Foundation (NSF) and 10 other agencies are working with artificial intelligence developers to fulfill parts of President Joe Biden's executive order on artificial intelligence and launch a pilot program.
The National Artificial Intelligence Research Resource (NAIRR) provides U.S. artificial intelligence researchers with access to artificial intelligence models, computing power, data sets, software and training, the National Science Foundation said in a statement. Researchers can apply for access to the NAIRR pilot program through its website, and NAIRR plans to launch a second call for research proposals this spring. If access is granted, researchers can use expensive, processing-powerful services like Microsoft Azure or Amazon Bedrock, which are typically paid for with research grants.
In addition to the National Science Foundation, other government agencies participating in the NAIRR project include the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the National Institutes of Health, the National Institute of Standards and Technology, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the U.S. Department of Defense, the U.S. Department of Energy, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, and the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. The government is working with 15 private sector partners, including Amazon Web Services, Anthropic, AMD, EleutherAI, Google, HuggingFace, IBM, Intel, Meta, Microsoft, NVIDIA, OpenAI and Palantir.
NVIDIA and Microsoft introduced their respective contributions to NAIRR. Microsoft said it donated $20 million in Azure consumption credits, access to models in the Azure OpenAI service, and resources for work on artificial intelligence fairness, accuracy and privacy, and NVIDIA committed to providing access to its DGX cloud and AI enterprise software.
Sethuraman Panchanathan, director of the National Natural Science Foundation of China, said in a statement: "To continue to maintain a leading position in the field of artificial intelligence research and development, we must create opportunities across the country, promote artificial intelligence innovation, strengthen educational opportunities, and enable the country to shape international standards and ignite the spark of economic growth."
Biden’s artificial intelligence executive order directs government agencies to establish NAIRR to ensure that the United States continues to be the world’s leading center for artificial intelligence innovation. The United States continues to lead in investment and research into generative AI, with companies like Google and OpenAI based in the United States, while other regions are also increasing their focus on the technology. According to the Harvard Business Review, China, the United Kingdom, Japan and Germany are the five countries that have invested the most resources in artificial intelligence development.
Big tech companies have been working with governments on artificial intelligence in the absence of clear regulations. Ahead of the AI executive order, the Biden White House has secured voluntary, non-binding agreements from companies including Meta, Google and OpenAI to safely develop AI systems. However, this close collaboration between the government and major tech companies raises regulatory “dark lights” issues that are likely not to go away with the rollout of NAIRR.
The NAIRR pilot project will initially focus on four areas: promoting access to a variety of AI resources; promoting AI research that requires security and privacy protection; promoting and developing interoperability between AI platforms; and educating and training the community in the use of AI tools. NAIRR's first projects focus on applying artificial intelligence to health care and environmental sustainability, the National Natural Science Foundation of China said in a statement.