Plans underway to redirect federal funding to researchers, AI

The Trump administration plans to redirect billions of dollars away from universities and toward individual scientists and artificial intelligence in order to speed up technological discovery to be used in the race against China, according to a new report. 

The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, in documentation released this week, said scientists can move faster by using AI in scientific research and outlined directives that will shape the allocation of $200 billion in annual federal research and development funding across the government, reports The Wall Street Journal on Wednesday. 

The move could hurt large universities that rely largely on federal research funding, as fellowships and awards that would typically go to the schools would instead be distributed to individual researchers.

The department said some of the model programs to be emulated include the National Science Foundation's graduate student fellowship program and a National Institutes of Health award for creative scientists.

"Over the last 20 or 30 years we’ve become very stagnant in believing we should keep funding the same research in the same way at the same institutions," Michael Kratsios, director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy, commented.

Kratsios said he met with the leader of an Ivy League university Tuesday about the plans, and received a favorable response. 

"Agencies should fund research that uses AI as a new instrument of scientific discovery, not merely as a tool to augment existing capabilities," Kratsios and OMB Director Russ Vought wrote in their memo.

Meanwhile, critics warn that AI models remain prone to error and that the technology could restrict research.

The administration also argues that the time being spent on government and university bureaucracy is holding the United States back.

But under the new plan, researchers would be directly funded, avoiding the involvement of universities, which now receive the funds and distribute them.

The administration also says it is focusing on AI at the center of scientific research, while instituting aggressive national goals.

The goals include deploying a powerful quantum computer by 2028 and having 10 new large nuclear reactors under construction by 2030 to boost the nation's electricity production.