The U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) and NVIDIA have announced a partnership to develop a suite of fully open-source artificial intelligence models designed to support the U.S. scientific community. The project, led by the Allen Institute for AI (Ai2), is named the Open Multimodal AI Infrastructure to Accelerate Science (OMAI).
The collaboration will receive $75 million in funding from the NSF and an additional $77 million from NVIDIA. The goal of the OMAI project is to create advanced AI models trained on scientific data, which will enable researchers to analyze data more efficiently, generate new insights, and accelerate discoveries in fields such as biology and materials science.
This initiative is aligned with the U.S. White House AI Action Plan, which aims to promote open models that set global standards, foster innovation, and strengthen American leadership in AI-driven science. Ali Farhadi, CEO of Ai2, stated that "fully-open AI is not just a preference — it's a necessity" for the U.S. to continue leading in scientific and technological discovery.