NSF has released a new solicitation for National Artificial Intelligence (AI) Research Institutes (NSF 20-604). The solicitation involves multiple NSF Directorates, including BIO, other federal agencies, and corporations such as Amazon and Google. It also includes a call for AI to Advance Biology (Theme 7).
This Institute theme seeks bold AI-based advances and information infrastructure to push the frontiers of biology, increase our understanding of complex systems, and provide a theoretical basis for original research across the biological sciences. Examples of challenges and activities under the theme are included in the solicitation.
Since such applications of AI to biological problems will ultimately require observation and hypothesis testing, the Institute should incorporate directed efforts to build transdisciplinary teams made up of researchers led or co-led by biologists with appropriate domain knowledge as well as AI researchers and data scientists. Education should be a key component of an Institute and the proposal should include plans to train a unique group of scientists with skills in modern biological sciences and AI who will be capable of leveraging knowledge and technologies of both disciplines to further advance both disciplines and stimulate applications that drive the bioeconomy.
The deadline for proposals is December 4, 2020. To learn about upcoming webinars and to see a list of program officers, visit the AI Institutes program page.
For background on the AI Institutes program, read the post on NSF’s Science Matters blog or read the announcement of recent awards under the program from the White House.
DBInfo - Blog of the Division of Biological Infrastructure 