The U.S. National Science Foundation has opened two funding opportunities that may be especially relevant for URI researchers working at the intersection of AI, scientific data, research computing, and cyberinfrastructure. Both have full proposal deadlines of November 4, 2026.
NSF State and Regional AI Infrastructure Hubs
NSF 26-513 supports state or regional consortia that expand access to computing, data, software, training, and workforce-development capacity for AI-enabled scientific discovery. NSF anticipates cooperative agreements of roughly $4 million to $12 million over five years.
NSF AI Datasets
NSF 26-512, Unlocking Dataset Value for AI-Enabled Scientific Discovery, supports work that makes existing scientific community datasets more useful for AI-enabled discovery. Suitable activities include metadata generation, data integration, harmonization, AI-ready pipelines, governance, and dataset security. NSF anticipates planning grants up to $200,000, impact awards up to $2 million, and flagship awards up to $5 million.
These programs may fit teams building shared scientific data resources, developing AI-ready research workflows, organizing regional compute partnerships, or designing training around advanced computing and AI infrastructure. URI researchers considering either opportunity should review the full NSF solicitations and coordinate early with collaborators and URI research support offices.