Supporting the compute researchers use: eight awards side by side
An award to the University of California San Diego to run the operations centre of the National AI Research Resource, obligating $7 million of an estimated $35 million.
Grant overview (primary data)
- Award amount$7,000,000 / Est. total $35,000,000
- RecipientUniversity of California-San Diego (California)
- ProgramNAIRR-Nat AI Research Resource
- Period2026-10-01 〜 2031-09-30
- FunderU.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) / NSF
Key points
- An award to the University of California San Diego to run the operations centre of the National AI Research Resource.
- Seven million dollars is obligated against an estimated $35 million, or 20.0%, over five years.
- It delivers production-scale capability on the foundation of the NAIRR Pilot and long-standing cyberinfrastructure work.
- Across the 123 NSF awards this site holds as of 2026-09-06, 86 are fully obligated and 37 partially; obligations are 45.8% of estimates.
1Not the people learning but the people researching
The seven awards so far reached learners: students, working adults, schoolchildren. This one supports the resource that researchers use.
NAIRR connects researchers and educators to public and private computational and data platforms, datasets, software, AI models and expertise. What this award covers is running it, delivering a production-scale capability on the foundation of the NAIRR Pilot and decades of cyberinfrastructure work at the San Diego Supercomputer Center.
2The eight side by side
| Audience | Award | Duration | Obligated / estimated |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cyber staff for government | University of Central Florida | 3 years | full (about $1.95m) |
| Same | New Jersey Institute of Technology | 3 years | full (about $1.94m) |
| Same | University of Texas at El Paso | 3 years | full (about $1.99m) |
| Same | Michigan Technological University | 3 years | full (about $1.93m) |
| Same | Arizona State University | 3 years | full (about $1.73m) |
| Adults learning while working | Georgia Tech Research Corporation | 5 years | 20.7% ($3.80m of $18.37m) |
| Children in school | North Carolina State University | 5 years | 19.8% ($3.97m of $20m) |
| Researchers and educators | University of California San Diego | 5 years | 20.0% ($7m of $35m) |
Three years fully obligated for workforce development, five years at a fifth for research infrastructure: the shape of an award follows its purpose.
Across these records the obligated total is about $344.7 million against estimated totals of about $751.8 million, so obligations are 45.8% of estimates. The two must not be added together.
3What one pass showed
The awards spread across 67 programmes and 37 states. Within that, these eight show that the same word, AI, reaches entirely different people — training people for government service, supporting adults retraining, changing how schoolchildren learn, running the foundation research sits on.
Why it matters
Public investment in AI divides across compute, research, workforce development and schooling. Ordering by amount hides the intent, so the records repay being read by audience.
FAQ
What is NAIRR?
What does an operations centre do?
Should obligated or estimated amounts be used?
Sources (primary)
Source: NSF Award Search (U.S. National Science Foundation, public domain). Amounts are the obligated amount. For privacy, we do not handle principal investigator names.
- NSF Award (original, official)
- NSF Award ID: 2616251