AI Grand Challenges Act

Summary#

This Act directs the Director of the National Science Foundation (NSF) to set up an "AI Grand Challenges Program" that uses prize competitions to push research, development, and commercialization of artificial intelligence (AI) for specific, measurable problems. The Director must pick grand challenges in many areas (for example, national security, cybersecurity, health, energy, environment, transportation, agriculture, education, manufacturing, space, quantum computing, materials science, supply chains, disaster preparedness, natural resources, and cross-cutting AI issues like safety, privacy, and bias). The Director will consult with the Office of Science and Technology Policy and other agencies, seek public input, post problem statements and success metrics on the NSF website and Challenge.gov, and publish testing and validation rules. The NSF may use staff from its Rotator Program to help run the program. The Director can accept funding from federal, state, local, Tribal, for-profit, and nonprofit sources but cannot consider such support when choosing winners. The Director must report winning submissions to relevant congressional committees within 60 days and provide a public biennial report about program activities.

The Act requires the Director to create at least one cancer-focused grand challenge (in consultation with OSTP and NIH) within one year that targets major lethal cancers and related comorbidities; each winner of that cancer competition must receive at least $10,000,000. For other competitions, each winner must receive at least $1,000,000 in cash prizes; non-cash awards are also allowed. The Director may award prizes larger than $50,000,000 following statutory requirements. Judges may include private-sector individuals, and eligibility rules require private entities to be incorporated and have a primary place of business in the United States and individuals to be U.S. citizens or permanent residents. The Director of OSTP must coordinate federal agencies to identify and publish data sets for grand challenges that address important scientific problems that can be advanced by AI.

What it means for you#

• If you are an individual researcher: to win a prize you must be a U.S. citizen or permanent resident. Competitions, problem statements, success metrics, and validation protocols will be posted publicly so you can see the rules before entering.
• If you are a private company or nonprofit: to be eligible you must be incorporated in and maintain your primary business in the United States. You can compete for cash and non-cash awards listed on Challenge.gov.
• If you are an agency, funder, or data manager: OSTP will coordinate publication of federal data sets that support the grand challenges, and federal agencies may provide funds to support the program.

Expenses#

• Required minimum cash prizes: at least $10,000,000 per winner for the designated cancer grand challenge; at least $1,000,000 per winner for other prize competitions.
• The Director may award prizes larger than $50,000,000 if statutory conditions are met.
• The Director may request and accept funds from federal agencies, state, local, Tribal agencies, for-profit entities, and nonprofits to support the program.
• No publicly available information on total program authorization, total budget, or estimated fiscal cost is in the bill text.

Proponents' View#

• No publicly available information on proponents' statements in the bill text. The bill sponsors are Senators Cory Booker, Mike Rounds, and Martin Heinrich.

Opponents' View#

• No publicly available information on opponents' statements in the bill text.