Trump launches "Manhattan Project" for AI! U.S. government establishes new partnership with NVIDIA

US President Trump has signed an executive order to launch a new federal program called the “Genesis Mission.” This initiative aims to dramatically accelerate US AI research, development, and scientific applications, and is seen as the most ambitious federal effort to marshal scientific resources since the Apollo Program. It directs the Department of Energy to establish the “American Science and Security Platform,” providing researchers with the computing power and data resources needed to train AI models.

Trump’s Genesis Mission Creates a National AI Research Platform

(Source: White House)

The executive order states: “The Genesis Mission will significantly accelerate scientific discovery, strengthen national security, ensure energy advantage, improve workforce efficiency, and amplify taxpayer returns on R&D investments.” This statement clearly reveals the Trump administration’s strategic positioning of AI: not just as a technological innovation, but as a core tool for national security and economic competitiveness. Michael Kratsios, Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and Assistant to the President for Technology, will lead the project.

Kratsios held a similar position during Trump’s first term and has extensive experience in tech policy and industry collaboration. His appointment highlights the administration’s commitment to the project, as Kratsios has direct reporting authority to the President and can coordinate cross-departmental resources to rapidly implement policies. Structurally, the Genesis Mission will be a cross-agency collaborative platform rather than an internal initiative of a single department, a design intended to break bureaucratic barriers and improve execution efficiency.

The executive order tasks US Energy Secretary Chris Wright with establishing the new “American Science and Security Platform” to concentrate the infrastructure required for AI R&D. According to the order, the platform will provide researchers with the necessary computing power and federal data resources to train AI models. The Department of Energy was chosen as the lead agency because it manages the nation’s most powerful supercomputer clusters, including Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s Frontier (currently one of the world’s fastest supercomputers).

The order states: “The Genesis Mission will build a unified AI platform, leveraging federal scientific datasets—national resources accumulated over decades of investment and the largest of their kind—to train foundational scientific models and develop AI agents to test hypotheses, automate research processes, and accelerate scientific breakthroughs.” This description reveals the program’s technical path: a unified AI platform rather than fragmented research projects.

Within 90 days, the Department of Energy must identify systems and data resources available for the program, including resources from industry partners, signaling a substantial deepening of public-private collaboration. This 90-day timeline is extremely tight, reflecting the Trump administration’s desire for a rapid launch. Industry partners’ involvement will bring cutting-edge AI technology and commercialization experience to the platform, helping to avoid the technological lag and inefficiency often seen in government projects.

Full Federal Data Access—AI Gets a Gold Mine

AI models rely on massive datasets, and the US government holds the world’s largest and most diverse scientific and public data—but these have long been scattered and unintegrated. The executive order instructs Kratsios to integrate “all appropriate and available agency data and infrastructure” to provide unified access for AI research. The scale and depth of this data integration are unprecedented in US federal history.

The value of federal data is immeasurable. NASA has decades of astronomical observation data; NIH (National Institutes of Health) holds vast medical and genomic databases; NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) has global climate and ocean data; and the Department of Defense possesses national security and military datasets. Previously, these datasets were siloed within their respective agencies, making cross-agency access difficult for researchers. The Genesis Mission will break down these barriers and establish a unified access channel.

Once computing and data infrastructure are in place, AI will be applied within 270 days to tackle key scientific and technological challenges, including advanced manufacturing and robotics, biotechnology, and nuclear fission and fusion. This 270-day timeline is equally ambitious, meaning the Genesis Mission should demonstrate tangible scientific breakthroughs by Q3 2026.

Three Key Areas for AI Application Within 270 Days

Advanced Manufacturing and Robotics: AI will optimize production processes and accelerate the reshoring of advanced manufacturing to the US.

Biotechnology: AI will speed up drug development and genomic analysis, boosting medical innovation capabilities.

Nuclear Fission and Fusion: AI will simulate nuclear reactions, shortening the timeline for breakthroughs in clean energy technology.

Fusion energy is especially noteworthy. Humanity has pursued controlled nuclear fusion for over 70 years, and once achieved, this clean energy technology would fundamentally reshape the global energy landscape. AI’s ability in complex physical simulations and experimental data analysis could accelerate breakthroughs in fusion research. If the Genesis Mission achieves progress in this field, its strategic significance will far exceed that of AI alone.

Building on NAIRR to Create a National AI Research Foundation

The Genesis Mission will further expand the National Artificial Intelligence Research Resource (NAIRR) platform, launched in 2020 under the National AI Initiative Act, with the goal of building nationwide AI research infrastructure. NAIRR began as a pilot, bringing together the Department of Defense, NASA, NIH, as well as organizations like OpenAI, Google, and Palantir, to form a national research network.

Lynne Parker, former NAIRR co-chair and former White House Assistant CTO, stated: “Long-term federal support for AI research is the bedrock of all breakthroughs and innovation. Without national investment, the US will lose its leadership in key technologies that determine the future of the economy and security.” This underscores the geopolitical context of the Genesis Mission: it is America’s strategic response to China’s AI development.

China’s rapid progress in AI has caused deep anxiety in Washington. The Chinese government’s investment in AI is massive and centralized, with national support from basic research to commercial application. The Genesis Mission can be seen as the US version of a “whole-of-nation” system, seeking to maintain technological leadership through concentrated federal investment. This strategic shift shows that the US recognizes that relying solely on the private sector may not guarantee victory in the AI race.

NAIRR’s success has laid the foundation for the Genesis Mission. Over the past few years, the NAIRR platform has supported thousands of research projects, demonstrating the feasibility of federal coordination. The Genesis Mission will further scale up, increase funding, open more data, and set clearer application goals on top of NAIRR’s foundation. This incremental expansion strategy reduces execution risk, as teams can leverage existing infrastructure and experience instead of starting from scratch.

AMD and NVIDIA Collaborate to Build Next-Gen Supercomputer Clusters

Several weeks ago, the US government announced new partnerships with leading AI companies to build the next generation of AI supercomputer clusters. At the end of October, the Department of Energy announced a partnership with AMD to deploy two new supercomputers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, one of the country’s core AI research hubs. Energy Secretary Wright stated: “Winning the AI race requires cross-industry innovative collaboration. These partnerships bring together America’s best scientific and technological capabilities.”

In early November, the Department of Energy announced it would deploy a new generation of Nvidia high-performance chips to further enhance Oak Ridge’s quantum computing and AI research capabilities. The simultaneous involvement of Nvidia and AMD demonstrates a diversified supply chain strategy, avoiding overreliance on a single chip supplier. This is crucial in the current geopolitical climate, as chip supply stability is directly tied to the continuity of AI research.

The choice of Oak Ridge National Laboratory is also strategic. The lab has decades of experience in supercomputing and currently operates the Frontier supercomputer, with a peak performance exceeding 1 exaflop (100 quintillion floating-point operations per second). Deploying new AI supercomputer clusters on this foundation can quickly generate productivity and avoid the long lead times of building from scratch.

Deepening public-private partnerships is a hallmark of the Genesis Mission. Collaborations with AMD and Nvidia involve not just hardware purchases, but also technical support, joint R&D, and talent exchange. This deep cooperation allows the government to access the most advanced AI technology, while companies gain large government contracts and the opportunity to participate in national projects. This win-win model has a long history in US technological development, from the Cold War space race to the birth of the internet, all of which relied on deep government-industry collaboration.