The University of Texas at Austin has been chosen to lead a new institute that harnesses artificial intelligence to explore some of the leading mysteries of the universe, including dark matter and the fundamentals related to the search for life. Housed in UT’s Oden Institute for Computational Sciences and Engineering, the NSF-Simons AI Institute for Cosmic Origins will be funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the Simons Foundation. Its mission is to develop AI technologies for astronomical research to advance our understanding of the cosmos and accelerate the pace of new scientific discoveries.
“This is an exciting opportunity to advance our understanding and help answer some of the most fundamental questions about the universe. As part of our campus, NSF-Simons CosmicAI will drive discovery using AI, enabled by an incredible set of talented people and the largest GPU cluster in all of academia. And, through the Oden Institute, it will collaborate with eight scientific domains that are among the best in the country,” said UT President Jay Hartzell. “As astronomical data tend to be public and nonproprietary, CosmicAI aligns with our University’s mission to use open AI as an enabler for the public good. We are grateful for our partnership with NSF and the Simons Foundation to launch this institute.”
CosmicAI, which further advances UT’s “Year of AI” initiative, will unite an interdisciplinary group of faculty members and researchers under one umbrella to expand AI innovation in astronomy. It will span eight departments with more than 17 faculty members in areas such as astronomy, computer science, statistics and data science, linguistics, information sciences, math, mechanical engineering and aerospace engineering.
“By building next-generation AI tools, the institute will accelerate discoveries related to the most basic human question: ‘Where do we come from?’ The CosmicAI research will investigate origins including galaxies' formation stars planets even building blocks life,” said Stella Offner director new institute associate professor astronomy College Natural Sciences co-director Center Scientific Machine Learning Oden Institute.
CosmicAI will develop AI approaches efficiently process large astronomical datasets explore nature dark matter model prebiotic molecules key life universe also plans democratize access developing powerful based astronomy "co-pilot" streamline scientific method astrophysics assist researchers visualizing producing statistical analyses understanding literature more.
“The Oden Institute is thrilled provide interdisciplinary home CosmicAI particularly exciting see cross-campus collisions taking place laying foundations this new effort,” said Karen Willcox director Oden Institute.
With goal make training methods accessible all grant includes extensive education outreach components help train literate workforce tomorrow multitiered programs engage high school students data research training undergraduates graduate-level courses offered certificate-type program build opportunities reducing barriers lowering costs expanding online opportunities.
Additionally leverage resources Texas Advanced Computing Center launch platform hosts large datasets within enabled analysis serve nexus community calculations collaboration.
The new institute co-directed Matthew Lease professor School Information expert modeling human-computer interaction faculty founder leader University’s Good Systems initiative nine-year campuswide grand challenge develop ethical technologies.
“It is exciting witness transforming discovery pipeline accelerate progress unprecedented pace unlocking innovations promise transform understanding,” said Arya Farahi research group lead assistant professor Department Statistics Data Sciences UT.
The new National Artificial Intelligence Research Institute part NSF-led Institutes program now includes 27 institutes across U.S., two them led UT: Foundations Machine Learning receive $20 million over five years: $10 million from NSF $10 million Simons Foundation.
Institutional partners include National Optical-Infrared Astronomy Research Laboratory Radio Astronomy Observatory University Virginia Utah California Los Angeles joined private collaborators nonprofit Allen drives open-source generative efforts domain foundation model OLMo.