Energy announces $352M in funding for frontier science

The Department of Energy unveiled a new $352 million funding opportunity for frontier research centers to accelerate emerging energy technologies and systems that will power the U.S. technology landscape. 

Announced on Tuesday, the new funding for Energy Frontier Research Centers follows the Trump administration’s May 2025 executive order instructing agencies to prioritize “Gold Standard Science” and is available for U.S. colleges and universities, researchers based in the national laboratory apparatus and private sector companies. 

The goal is to address fundamental research challenges in materials sciences, chemistry, geosciences and biosciences.

The focus on these fields serves as a means to advance breakthroughs in areas like critical minerals, quantum computing and advanced manufacturing that are slated to be crucial to new energy technologies and systems.

“For over 15 years, the EFRC program has provided a transformational research environment that has brought together the strengths of our National Laboratories and universities to accelerate discovery, develop innovative tools, and train the next generation of the American energy science workforce,” Energy Under Secretary for Science Darío Gil said in a press release. “The EFRCs will continue to play a vital role in bridging disciplines and institutions, advancing foundational science and strengthening America’s leadership to push forward scientific frontiers critical for new energy technologies.”

Program applicants are required to focus on research topics that address scientific challenges in one of the highlighted topics: unconventional computing paradigms; artificial intelligence and machine learning for materials and chemistry; complex chemical systems; critical minerals and materials; nuclear energy science; subsurface science; electrical energy storage; advanced manufacturing; microelectronics; and quantum systems and computing.

During the second Trump administration, Energy has been a key agency in helping the U.S. dominate in emerging technology and fundamental scientific research. Last fall, the agency unveiled a roadmap to advance fusion energy technologies to support the American energy grid. 

During the announcement, Energy Secretary Chris Wright acknowledged artificial intelligence as “a tremendous enabling technology” that is poised to further fundamental science in fusion energy research. 

“It's hard to overstate the catalytic effect of artificial intelligence,” he said at the time.

Energy is also at the forefront of the Genesis Mission, a Trump administration program that will create the American Science and Security Platform to unify the U.S. national labs in leveraging high-performance computing to advance emerging technology research.