The "AI Materials Institute (AI-MI)" discovers new materials with AI — NSF AI grant $6M (Cornell)

The U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) awarded about $6,000,000 to the NSF AI Materials Institute (AI-MI), led by Cornell University (NSF Award 2433348; program: AI Research Institutes / NSF-Intel semiconductor partnership; October 2025 – September 2030).

1What blocks materials discovery

Per the abstract, the need for materials with improved or new properties is at the heart of many societal challenges, yet knowledge- and data-centric obstacles prevent prediction-driven materials discovery despite expanding experimental capabilities and data.

AI-MI aims to propel foundational AI past the limits of existing algorithms via materials discovery, while accelerating the discovery of next-generation materials essential for sustainable energy, electronics, environmental stewardship, and quantum technologies.

By tightly integrating data generation, AI inference, and rapid experimental feedback, it seeks to reduce discovery cycles from months to days and to establish reproducible, reusable workflows for the broader community.

2The open cloud platform AIMS-EC

At its core is AIMS-EC (the AI Materials Science Ecosystem), an open, cloud-based portal that couples a science-ready large language model with multimodal data streams (experimental measurements, simulations, images, and literature). Researchers can pose natural-language queries and receive transparent, data-grounded answers, unifying prediction, explanation, and experimental design in a single interface.

Targeted applications include discovering two-dimensional moiré structures suitable for robust qubits, learning descriptors to guide new superconductors, finding functional soft materials for sustainability, and identifying peptides for microplastic removal, plus accelerating synthesis through self-driving labs. AI-MI also runs a comprehensive education program across all levels and engages industry collaborators.

3Award size differs by field

Sorting the 120 NSF AI-related awards this site holds as of 2026-09-01 by federal assistance listing (CFDA) and taking the median obligation, computer and information science leads at $4.00 million, then integrative activities at $2.43 million, education and human resources at $1.99 million and technology and innovation at $1.50 million.

Education and human resources carries the most awards at 26, yet computer and information science is more than double per award. Fields that come with computing capacity or large research infrastructure run to larger sums, while fields that train people spread by count. Counts and amounts widen along different lines.