Officials from the Commerce Department and the National Science Foundation (NSF) said on Tuesday they are hoping to continue working with the incoming administration on two key technology programs: the Commerce Department’s Tech Hubs program and NSF’s National Artificial Intelligence Research Resource (NAIRR) pilot.
Both programs were launched under the Biden administration. The Tech Hubs program was authorized in 2022 as part of the CHIPS and Science Act, while the NAIRR pilot met a requirement set by President Biden’s AI executive order (EO) issued in October 2023.
NSF, in partnership with the Department of Commerce’s Economic Development Administration, hosted the first-ever ROADMAP Summit on Tuesday, where officials from both agencies shared their hopes for the programs going forward.
Tech Hubs Program
The Tech Hubs program aims to develop clusters of businesses, communities, and higher education institutions focused on accelerating technology deployment across America. In 2023, the program designated 31 technology hubs across the country, and in July of this year, it awarded more than $500 million of investments in 12 of these regions.
Acting Assistant Secretary of Commerce and Economic Development Cristina Killingsworth told reporters on Tuesday that the Tech Hubs program has been appropriated just about 5 percent of its $10 billion authorization.
“We can’t stop there,” Killingsworth said. “The excitement we felt for the investments is like nothing we’ve seen before, and the potential is enormous.”
“I am convinced that the regional collaboration that we see in Tech Hubs … is more important than the funding, or as important as the funding at least,” she added. “The level of consortia building we have seen is unprecedented, and it’ll long outlast the Federal funding.”
Killingsworth explained that the Tech Hubs program has received $541 million in funding, and it has allocated all of those funds.
“We think that those investments have the possibility of being transformational, and we and the team are hustling as fast as possible to make sure that our Tech Hubs have some access to those funds for future funding,” she said.
With the Trump administration taking office in January, Killingsworth said she “can’t predict the future,” but noted that this program has garnered “the most outreach” from members of Congress on both sides of the aisle.
“I can’t predict whether or not there’s going to be additional funding,” she said. “What I can say is that everybody is behind the idea of bolstering U.S. economic competitiveness and U.S. national security, and so we’re hopeful that the program will continue for years to come.”
NAIRR Pilot
As for the NAIRR pilot, NSF launched the pilot in January 2024 – meeting its 90-day deadline set by President Biden’s AI EO. The NAIRR serves as a shared national infrastructure to support the AI research community and power responsible AI use.
NSF Director Sethuraman Panchanathan told reporters on Tuesday that the NAIRR pilot is “an excellent exemplar of how you can do things fast, at speed, and at scale.”
NSF, in partnership with the Department of Energy, awarded 35 projects first-round access to the NAIRR in May. These awards provide access to a set of advanced computing resources for projects focused on advancing safe, secure, and trustworthy AI.
Today, Panchanathan said there are 115 projects already deployed that are using NAIRR resources to unleash AI ideas.
“But if the resources are not available for those ideas to be able to express that idea in the fullest form, it will be a missed opportunity,” Panchanathan warned. “What does it take to have the NAIRR full-scale deployed?”
The NSF director said he is “very gratified” to see bills in Congress looking to make permanent the NAIRR, particularly the Creating Resources for Every American To Experiment with AI Act (CREATE AI Act). The CREATE AI Act contains a funding clause of $2.6 billion for the NAIRR.
The bill recently passed out of the House Science, Space and Technology Committee, as well as the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee. Both versions of the bill are on the House and Senate floors, but it is unclear if Congress will vote on the bill during the lame-duck session.
“I think there is clearly a lot of interest in AI. There’s no question about that. So, how might we make sure that we are launching this at full scale, so we might provide the resources necessary … so that we can actually realize the full potential of what we can do right here in our country,” Panchanathan said.
“I’m very thrilled by what we’ll be able to do with a full-scale NAIRR program. And so, I just wanted to say that I’m looking forward to working with Congress and the [incoming] administration to be able to do that,” he added.
Panchanathan also noted that he plans to stick around for the remainder of his six-year term, which ends in 2026.
“I typically don’t comment on my terms, it is left up to the incoming administration and what they will do in terms of how they want to move forward, and I’m very respectful of that,” he said. “I came here knowing that I have a six-year term, and I wanted to see what we could do in the six-year term to unleash innovation all across our nation and show the promise and the potential which is building upon all the work that has happened by NSF over the last seven decades.”
