NAIRR Pilot Expands with New Resources and Opportunities for Researchers and Educators 

Aug. 15, 2024 -- Since the launch of the NAIRR Pilot in January 2024 the team has been rapidly building out the Pilot’s capabilities and resources, focused on the goal of democratizing access to AI resources to power discovery and innovation. The last several months have been quite a whirlwind – with a steady stream of new resources and opportunities, events, and awards being rolled out, as detailed below. The NAIRR Pilot portal is the one-stop place for all NAIRR Pilot information and resources for researchers and educators.

Also of note, a Subcommittee on the NAIRR Pilot has been formed under the NSF Advisory Committee for Cyberinfrastructure (ACCI) to provide expert advisory input into the direction of the Pilot. The subcommittee will be available in the coming weeks.

NSF has also announced the start of a groundbreaking computing project, LCCF, that will greatly enhance computational science capabilities including for AI when completed.

Now on the NAIRR Pilot Portal: Resources and Opportunities for Researchers and Educators

• New! The NAIRR Classroom resource opportunity provides educators with AI resources for instruction in their classrooms. It is meant to build a community a educators empowered with the resources to train the next generation of researchers and increase the diversity of talent in AI. More information about some of the resources available can be found at a recent classroom partner showcase webinar hosted by NSF.
• New resources on the ongoing call for resource allocation requests are now available to researchers, including new supercomputing and cloud computing cycles, model API credits, collaboration opportunities, and more (Scroll down to “Available Resources” to see the full list). More information about some of the researcher resources available can be found at a recent partner showcase webinar hosted by NSF.
• Data, Models, and More continue to be available from NAIRR government partners via the portal.
• An initial set of demonstration projects have been posted to the portal. Demonstration projects are aimed at developing and testing new AI infrastructure capabilities to advance the NAIRR. More demo projects will be announced over the next weeks and months.

Open NSF Funding Opportunities

• Dear Colleague Letter NSF 24-093, National Artificial Intelligence Research Resource (NAIRR) Pilot Demonstration Projects was released on May 28, 2024. Invites EAGER proposals and supplemental funding requests for demonstration projects that showcase innovative use cases and technologies for future NAIRR projects.
• Dear Colleague Letter NSF 24-109, NAIRR Pilot Expansion: Researcher Training, Community Outreach, and Classroom Education (released July 18, 2024). Encourages proposals and supplemental funding requests to expand the NAIRR Pilot community through community outreach, research training and support for educators to bring inclusive AI educational experiences to classrooms nationwide.

New Supported Pilot Activities

• NSF’s Office of Advanced Cyberinfrastructure (OAC) is financially supporting many activities to advance the NAIRR Pilot. This includes new projects that have been initiated and existing projects that have been expanded.
• NSF OAC supported a recent workshop focused on addressing trustworthy and responsible AI in the NAIRR Pilot and eventual full NAIRR. The workshop was organized by Dr. Julia Stoyanovich and held at New York University on July 29-31. A report on the outcomes of the workshop is anticipated in the coming weeks.

Send any inquiries to NAIRR_Pilot@nsf.gov.

Source: NSF