Public-Private Partnership to Advance U.S. Research
NVIDIA has joined forces with the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) to accelerate the development of multimodal AI models designed to advance scientific discovery. This collaboration centers on the Open Multimodal AI Infrastructure to Accelerate Science (OMAI) initiative, led by the Allen Institute for AI (Ai2). The project aims to establish a fully open AI ecosystem, giving U.S. researchers access to advanced models, datasets, and tools to drive breakthroughs across scientific disciplines. The partnership aligns with the White House AI Action Plan, which prioritizes open technology and the expansion of AI-enabled science.
The agreement includes a public-private investment of $152 million. This will provide AI infrastructure such as NVIDIA HGX B300 systems, powered by NVIDIA Blackwell Ultra GPUs, along with the NVIDIA AI Enterprise platform. These systems are built for large-scale model training and inference, offering high bandwidth, scalability, and efficiency to handle the world’s largest AI models.
Empowering Researchers with Open Models
A core challenge for scientific AI is the lack of open access to frontier models, which often keeps critical data, code, and documentation behind closed doors. OMAI intends to change that by providing fully open models, open-source data interrogation tools, and training resources for early-career scientists. Researchers will be able to trace AI outputs back to specific training data, study emerging behaviors, and refine datasets with transparency.
The initiative will also make its models and software available at low or no cost, following the model of open-source code repositories and science-focused digital libraries. By doing so, OMAI seeks to democratize access to high-performance AI tools, enabling a broader range of institutions to contribute to cutting-edge research.
Collaboration Across U.S. Institutions
OMAI’s reach will extend to multiple universities, including the University of Washington, the University of Hawaii at Hilo, the University of New Hampshire, and the University of New Mexico. These institutions will collaborate on developing and applying multimodal AI models capable of processing text, images, graphs, tables, and more. The aim is to unlock new possibilities in areas such as climate modeling, biomedical research, and advanced engineering.
The NSF emphasized that integrating AI into science has transformed research capabilities, making it possible to tackle challenges once deemed impossible. For NVIDIA, this partnership reinforces the role of AI as a key driver in what it calls the “next industrial revolution,” powered by large, open models available to America’s research community.
Strategic Alignment with National AI Goals
The OMAI project supports the White House’s vision for strengthening U.S. AI leadership. Recent executive orders have targeted faster approval for data center infrastructure and the promotion of U.S.-built AI technologies abroad. By expanding open AI capabilities in science, the partnership between NVIDIA, NSF, and Ai2 directly addresses these policy goals, aiming to cement America’s role at the forefront of AI innovation in both academia and industry.