The United States is in the midst of an AI race among the largest technology companies. The U.S. is already the global leader in this field, and it appears President Donald Trump intends to capitalize on that fact.
The new executive order directs the Department of Energy (DOE) and the national laboratory network to create a shared AI-based experimental platform that would give scientists and companies access to federal computing infrastructure. The administration says the project represents “the largest marshaling of federal scientific resources since the Apollo program” and is intended to drive breakthroughs in fields such as physics, engineering, and drug design.
According to Politico, the administration plans to offer access to resources across three categories:
• open access, enabling researchers and startups to work with government data;
• commercial access, intended for technology companies;
• classified access, used by the military and national security sectors.
The project will be funded in part through the “One Big Beautiful Bill,” and the administration has invited major AI hardware and software companies — from Nvidia to Dell Technologies — to participate.
As reported by Reuters, the Trump administration argues that the Genesis Mission will help the U.S. restore its technological edge over China by leveraging AI. The initiative is expected to allow researchers to perform simulations and experiments 10,000 to even 100,000 times faster than traditional laboratory work. In practice, this means new materials could be designed, plasma properties predicted, or potential drug molecules generated in hours rather than months.
The executive order also requires agencies to centralize and standardize federal scientific databases so they can be used by AI models. In effect, this will transform scientific and technical data into a “national resource” accessible to researchers, startups, and corporate partners. The program additionally calls for developing dual-use AI systems that can support both civilian and military research.
According to the White House, the Genesis Mission is intended to be the first step toward building a “national AI ecosystem”, where public and private resources work together to accelerate research in strategically important areas — from nuclear energy to defense technologies.
However, analysts caution that the program’s lack of transparency regarding data-access rules, combined with the dominant role of powerful tech companies, may create future tensions within the academic community and lead to regulatory challenges.
