Texas A&M University is pleased to announce it has joined the Genesis Mission , a historic national initiative led by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE).
The Genesis Mission will build “the world’s most powerful integrated science discovery platform. By uniting government, industry, academia and philanthropy, it is accelerating breakthroughs in energy, scientific discovery, and national security through a new platform that combines AI, supercomputing, quantum systems, and advanced scientific instruments,” according to the DOE, which has identified an initial 26 national science and technology challenges and selected 278 projects as part of the mission.
“America has no shortage of bold ideas or talented scientists, and the response to the Genesis Mission proves that,” said U.S. Secretary of Energy Chris Wright. “The 278 projects selected today represent the very best of our nation’s scientific enterprise. The remarkable number of high-quality proposals we received demonstrates that America’s innovation pipeline is strong, and it points to even greater opportunities for future investment and continued expansion of the Genesis Mission portfolio.”
Rather than focusing on a single discipline, the initiative spans three major pillars: energy dominance, discovery science and national security. Its challenges include modernizing and scaling the electric grid; securing critical mineral supply chains; advancing nuclear fission and fusion technologies; accelerating advanced manufacturing; designing new materials; discovering new chemistry; improving quantum computing; understanding the universe; and strengthening nuclear security.
“Texas A&M's role in the Genesis Mission underscores the caliber of our research enterprise and our dedication to solving some of the nation's most pressing challenges,” said Texas A&M President Dr. Susan Ballabina . “By drawing on the interdisciplinary efforts and expertise of our researchers, we are pushing the boundaries of discovery and pioneering new technologies, together. We are honored to bring Texas A&M's world-class talent and resources to this effort as we collaborate at an even larger scale to help shape the future of science and innovation to serve our state, nation and world.”
Underlying the mission objectives is the idea of connecting DOE’s vast stores of scientific data, world-class research facilities, supercomputing resources and artificial intelligence systems into a unified discovery platform capable of dramatically accelerating research and development.
Dr. Angela Wilson , A&M’s vice president for research, says the initiative is revolutionary both in its scale and potential for scientific advancements.
“The Genesis Mission is built on the idea that scientific discovery can be accelerated through unprecedented access to data, computing power and expertise,” Wilson said. “By bringing together researchers from academia, government and industry, this initiative creates new opportunities to tackle complex challenges in ways that would not have been possible just a few years ago. Texas A&M is proud to contribute to a national effort that seeks to transform how research is conducted, whether advancing fundamental knowledge or addressing real-world challenges.”
Four projects from Texas A&M researchers have been selected for the mission:
Both Chu and Perez are taking on the mission challenge of using AI to secure critical resources for the nation. According to the DOE, the goal is to “reduce reliance on adversarial nations, expand America's mineral resource base, maximize production profitability, and strengthen supply chain resilience for technologies essential to national security and economic prosperity.”
Chu’s project aims to combine biological, water-system and geochemical information to create AI-enabled tools for biomining research. The project, in collaboration with Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory , will integrate data about microorganisms, water movement and mineral chemistry to help scientists better locate and recover critical minerals.
"Critical minerals are essential to modern technologies, but identifying and recovering them efficiently remains a significant challenge,” said Chu, professor of civil and environmental engineering. “By bringing together microbial, hydrological and geochemical data in an AI-guided framework, we hope to uncover new insights into biological pathways for locating and recovering these resources while advancing more sustainable approaches to resource development."
Perez, associate professor in the Department of Geology and Geophysics, and his team are seeking new ways to understand how ancient geological processes shaped the distribution of critical minerals across the American West. Focusing on regions influenced by the Laramide mountain-building event that helped form today's Rocky Mountains and surrounding landscapes, the team will use AI to combine and analyze geological, geochemical, geophysical and satellite-based datasets. The goal is to uncover clues about how critical mineral deposits formed and where similar geological conditions may exist. The team is working in collaboration with the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) .
“The geological record preserves clues about how critical mineral deposits formed, but those clues are often scattered across many different types of data,” Perez said. “Our goal is to use AI to connect those pieces, learn from known rare earth element deposits and build a clearer picture of the geological conditions that led to their formation. That could help us better understand where similar conditions may exist across the region today.”
Karthein, an assistant professor of physics and astronomy and researcher in the Texas A&M Cyclotron Institute, is working with collaborators including Argonne National Laboratory to develop AI-powered "digital twins," that can help researchers run complex nuclear physics experiments more efficiently. The goal is to make better use of scarce and expensive beam time, allowing scientists to spend more time studying rare isotopes that can provide insight into how the elements were created in stars and stellar explosions.
“Artificial intelligence has already transformed large scientific facilities that produce enormous amounts of data,” Karthein said. “But these precision nuclear experiments are the opposite: they are ‘data-scarce,’ running only a few hundred experimental campaigns over an entire lifetime with a handful of datasets per campaign, not millions per day. Because standard, data-hungry AI simply doesn't work in this setting, this corner of science has been left behind.”
Dr. Simon North, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, said Karthein and Perez are “outstanding examples of the talent, innovation and intellectual leadership found across the College of Arts and Sciences. Their selection to participate in the Genesis Mission recognizes not only their individual achievements, but also the vital role that fundamental research and interdisciplinary collaboration play in addressing complex scientific challenges. We are excited to see their contributions help shape this ambitious national effort.”
Liu, an assistant professor of nuclear engineering, is tackling energy dominance for the Genesis Mission. His project, in collaboration with Argonne National Laboratory, will explore how AI can accelerate the engineering analysis and licensing work needed to bring advanced nuclear technologies into operation. The SHIELD system automates the modeling and simulation behind reactor safety analysis and assembles the supporting documentation that engineers and regulators rely on, while human experts review and approve every important step. The team will demonstrate the approach on two reactor types: a next-generation sodium-cooled design and the large light-water plants being deployed today.
"Bringing an advanced reactor from design to license today takes years of analysis and documentation, much of it assembled by hand," Liu said. "We are building AI tools that take on this routine work and produce results engineers and regulators can trust and verify, while human experts approve every important decision. If we succeed, we shorten the path from innovation to deployment without compromising safety."
Dr. Robert H. Bishop, vice chancellor and dean of Texas A&M Engineering, said the mission is a bold step into the future of science and innovation.
"The Genesis Mission reflects a new era of scientific discovery, where advances in artificial intelligence, computing and engineering converge to address some of our nation's most pressing challenges," he said. "We are proud to contribute expertise in critical minerals, advanced nuclear systems and data-driven research alongside our national laboratory partners. These projects demonstrate how we are helping develop the technologies, tools and talent needed to strengthen America's energy future, economic competitiveness and national security.”
The Genesis Mission brings together a vast array of expertise to face some of the nation's most complex scientific and technological challenges.
Texas A&M's participation reflects the university's commitment to large-scale research collaborations and places its researchers among those helping shape the future of scientific discovery.
The project adds to a growing portfolio of major research initiatives at Texas A&M, including a supercomputer that was recently ranked as the nation’s most powerful academic supercomputer .
By Lesley Henton, Texas A&M University Division of Marketing and Communications
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