Energy expects Genesis Mission will double R&D productivity in coming decade

The Department of Energy’s Genesis Mission aims to double the productivity and impact of the U.S. research and development engine within the next 10 years, the agency’s undersecretary for science, Darío Gil, said at a Monday evening AWS event. It’s part of a larger focus on recharacterizing the purpose of artificial intelligence adoption.

Genesis represents a sweeping national initiative with a goal of advancing the U.S.’s scientific research enterprise with advanced technologies. Launched in November 2025 via executive order, it aims to leverage Energy’s national laboratory system, the best AI, high-performance computing and quantum information systems across different scientific domains.

“Ultimately, we seek to double the productivity and impact of America's trillion dollar-a-year R&D engine within a decade,” Gil said, adding that although the country’s 17 national laboratories have “some of the finest high-performance computing systems in the world,” maintaining U.S. leadership in the global scientific and technological landscape requires newer systems.

“We need a new generation of AI supercomputers that complement the high-precision, high-performance simulation environments that the [Energy] department is just world renowned for,” he said. Gil specified that the Genesis Mission looks to leverage agentic frameworks in particular to connect powerful classical computers and future cryptographically-relevant quantum computers to accelerate scientific discovery. 

It's an approach he characterized as “an internet of science.”

The measurable outcomes by which to grade the Genesis Mission’s progress are myriad, though Gil listed the creation of scientifically-tailored frontier models that can handle advanced scientific workloads — such advancing work in protein folding — and support advancements in national security and economic development as paramount.

“We've constructed a portfolio of national science and technology challenges spanning energy discovery science and national security, and we want to solve problems faster and more impactfully than before,” he said. 

Gil explained that scientifically-focused, AI-fueled work that can deliver meaningful life improvements is part of how AI should be conceptualized moving forward in lieu of fixating on negative societal impacts.

“I think the industry has not done a wonderful job telling the AI story, and we have a lot of headwinds as a result,” he said. “We’ve got…to bring it back to purpose. ‘What are we trying to solve with this?’”

Gil said the updated messaging around AI should encourage future scientists, engineers and other professionals to want to participate in the evolution of the technology.

“[To] the next generation of American scientists and engineers…we gotta give an elegant message that we need more of them, and we need all of them, and we need to have a renewed commitment towards American students entering science and engineering,” Gil said.