Genesis Mission grants put Trump’s AI science plan in motion

The Trump administration’s first Genesis Mission grants will send $5 billion to hundreds of AI-focused science projects, advancing a federal push to make artificial intelligence central to American research. The move matters because it comes alongside a broader White House plan to shift research priorities toward AI, robotics and nuclear energy while reducing emphasis on parts of the life sciences.

The White House has described the Genesis Mission as an effort comparable in urgency and ambition to the Manhattan Project. The Energy Department led the first funding round, which covers 278 projects selected from more than 5,000 applications, according to Politico.

The grants cover areas including drug discovery, biomedical research, energy, advanced materials and robotics. The Energy Department said the program will bring together national laboratories, companies and universities to pursue advances tied to energy, discovery science and national security.

What is the Genesis Mission?

The Genesis Mission is a White House-backed research program that uses AI tools and computing resources to speed up scientific discovery. Technology companies including Google, Microsoft and OpenAI are providing millions of dollars in compute, AI credits and other support, according to The Verge.

Michael Kratsios, Trump’s science adviser, tied the program to the administration’s “Golden Age” science agenda, Politico reported. That agenda calls for more support for individual researchers, a larger role for private companies in research, and more authority for political appointees over federal grant decisions.

The plan is presented as a modern answer to Vannevar Bush’s 1945 report “Science, the Endless Frontier,” which helped shape the postwar federal research system. Researchers cited by The Verge argue the new approach departs from Bush’s emphasis on broad, open-ended basic research that may not produce quick commercial results.

Why are scientists criticizing Trump’s science agenda?

Several researchers told The Verge that the administration is treating science too much like a startup investment portfolio, with a focus on speed, measurable returns and near-term goals. Claes de Vreese, a University of Amsterdam professor of AI and society, said venture capital methods cannot force scientific breakthroughs while assuming commercial payoffs are already in sight.

Jason Shepherd, a University of Utah neurobiology professor, told The Verge that many scientists would support goals such as faster peer review, steadier funding and more room for high-risk research. But he said the agenda appears to have been written by political appointees without serious input from scientists and rests on a mistaken comparison between academic research and tech companies.

Harvard professor Jeffrey Flier, a former dean of Harvard Medical School, told The Verge the plan lacks an understanding of the academic conditions that support science. Andreas Karch, a University of Texas at Austin physics professor, said the administration appears to assume future breakthroughs will come from the tech sector, while warning that tech and science are not the same field.

Critics also pointed to unclear categories in the agenda. Shepherd cited a proposal to cut support for “life sciences” while increasing support for “foundational research in the biological sciences,” terms the White House has not clearly defined, according to The New York Times.

Karch also warned that AI-generated science still needs expert human review. He told The Verge that universities train many of the people needed to judge whether AI outputs are useful, even as those institutions face cuts and grant disruptions.

The funding announcement arrives amid broader turmoil in federal science support, including grant cancellations and pressure on universities, researchers and international students, according to The Verge. Carl Bergstrom, a University of Washington biology professor, said federal agencies also help sustain the country’s wider STEM system, and warned that weakening that role could damage the U.S. economy over time.

This story draws on original reporting from The Verge.