🚀 Webinar: Exploring the NAIRR Pilot Portal Sandboxes

📅 February 10, 2026
⏰ 10:00am PT | 12:00pm CT | 1:00pm ET

🎤 Presenter: Sandra Gesing, #SGX3 – The NSF Center of Excellence for Science Gateways

Explore #NAIRR Pilot Portal sandboxes (#Jetstream2 & #NDP) for #AI research, #FAIR data & education!

🔗 Register: https://ucsd.zoom.us/meeting/register/5EzvnsZbSgidFemYJQSUQA#/registration/

#RSE #RSEng #research #ResearchSoftware #ResearchComputing #ResearchData

The #NAIRR pilot has evolved from concept to a real shared #AI research platform that connects researchers, educators, industry partners, and national labs. Sandra Gesing, executive director of US-RSE, highlights how this 2-year-old collaborative infrastructure is lowering barriers for teams to fuel creativity, discovery, and possibility.

👉 Read more: https://www.govtech.com/education/higher-ed/2-years-into-nairr-pilot-shared-infrastructure-boosts-ai-innovation/

#RSE #RSEng #ResearchSoftwareEngineering #Innovation #Collaboration #HPC

Breakdown of #NAIRR
Pilot allocations by project and weighted by actual compute time. Suggests CS (#AI) research is comprised of many small projects relative to traditional domain sciences in #HPC.

From today's ASCAC presentation https://science.osti.gov/ascr/ascac/Meetings/202409

The National AI Research Resource #NAIRR Pilot, launched earlier this year, is holding a webinar in a few hours showcasing their work and taking questions: https://new.nsf.gov/events/nairr-pilot-partner-showcase/2024-05-21

(I spoke recently at an event in Washington DC where the first compute awards from this resource were announced, where I discussed the related #PCAST report on this topic that I co-chaired: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ew_VxeW_M-c )

Over the past six months, the #PCAST working group in #AI that I have been co-leading with Laura Greene has been working to fulfill a tasking from part of an executive order of the President (see https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/presidential-actions/2023/10/30/executive-order-on-the-safe-secure-and-trustworthy-development-and-use-of-artificial-intelligence/ ) to report on the potential impacts of AI technologies on research (particularly those aimed at societal and global challenges), and what barriers exist to fully achieving the benefits of AI assistance in this space. I'm pleased to announce that the report is now complete and can be found at https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/AI-Report_Upload_29APRIL2024_SEND-2.pdf (see also the press release at https://www.whitehouse.gov/pcast/briefing-room/2024/04/29/pcast-releases-report-on-supercharging-research-harnessing-artificial-intelligence-to-meet-global-challenges/ ), as part of a longer list of outcomes from the executive order that can be found at https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2024/04/29/biden-harris-administration-announces-key-ai-actions-180-days-following-president-bidens-landmark-executive-order/ .

In our report (the main body of which is about 40 pages in length, with a five page executive summary), we give multiple vignettes from across the sciences in which AI tools are already transforming the field. We identified three key pillars that require attention to fully benefit from this transformation: empowerment of human scientists; responsible use of AI tools; and sharing of basic AI resources. We then have five recommendations to further these goals, including the full funding of the National AI Research Resource (#NAIRR) and requiring reponsible AI use plans for any federally funded research project that uses AI tools.

A presentation of the report to PCAST, together with a question and answer session, can be found at https://www.whitehouse.gov/pcast/meetings/2024-meetings/

This article starts strong about how universities’ insulation from market forces gives them a good footing to explore long-term challenges in #AI around things like explainability, but its three recommendations for #NAIRR seem pretty weak.

Three ways the US could help universities compete with tech companies on AI innovation

https://www.technologyreview.com/2024/04/19/1091488/three-ways-the-us-could-help-universities-compete-with-tech-companies-on-ai-innovation/

"Democratizing the future of AI R&D: NSF to launch National AI Research Resource pilot"

The NAIRR pilot will initially support AI research to advance safe, secure and trustworthy AI, as well as the application of AI to challenges in healthcare and environmental and infrastructure sustainability. The pilot will also provide infrastructure support to educators to enable training on AI technologies and their responsible approaches.  

https://new.nsf.gov/news/democratizing-future-ai-rd-nsf-launch-national-ai

#AI #NAIRR #Palantir #NSF

A pilot of the National Artificial Intelligence Research Resource (#NAIRR) has just been launched at https://nairrpilot.org/ . This resource is an initiative led by the US federal government (and administered by the NSF) to provide compute, data, models, and other resources for #AI researchers. It is currently rather small scale, but there is a bill in the early stages of working through Congress to appropriate funds to set up a larger scale resource (largely along the lines envisioned in this task force report: https://www.ai.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/NAIRR-TF-Final-Report-2023.pdf ).

A press release on the launch of this pilot may be found at https://new.nsf.gov/news/democratizing-future-ai-rd-nsf-launch-national-ai

Democratizing the future of #AI R&D: NSF to launch National AI Research Resource pilot

Partnering with 10 federal agencies and 25 organizations, the #NAIRR pilot will provide access to #HPC, datasets, models, software, training and user support

https://new.nsf.gov/news/democratizing-future-ai-rd-nsf-launch-national-ai