Trump deploys $5B AI science plan, dismaying researchers

On Thursday, the Trump administration unveiled the Genesis Mission, a $5 billion（約8000億円） grant initiative distributed across 278 AI-driven science projects selected from over 5,000 applications. The projects span drug discovery, biomedical science, energy, advanced materials, and robotics—all unified by the premise of using artificial intelligence to accelerate scientific discovery. The Energy Department led this round of funding, framing the effort as a collaboration between national laboratories, industry, and academia to pursue "breakthroughs in energy dominance, discovery science, and national security." Technology companies including Google, Microsoft, and OpenAI are contributing millions of dollars in compute resources, AI credits, and other support.

Simultaneously, White House science adviser Michael Kratsios promoted a lengthy policy manifesto styled as a modern successor to Vannevar Bush's 1945 "Science, the Endless Frontier." Kratsios linked the Genesis Mission to this broader agenda, calling it "the culmination of the reforms suggested in" the manifesto. The document proposes a fundamental restructuring of federal research funding: shifting support away from institutions and universities toward individual scientists, giving private companies a larger role in directing and conducting research, and granting political appointees greater power to block grants they disagree with. The approach favors what Kratsios calls a "Golden Age" of American science, one that would prioritize artificial intelligence, robotics, and nuclear energy while downplaying life sciences.

The manifesto adopts the language and logic of Silicon Valley venture capital. It emphasizes identifying promising people and projects, setting clear goals with measurable targets, moving quickly, iterating constantly, and cutting work that seems unlikely to deliver results. Some of its proposals appeal to researchers—reducing administrative burden on scientists, speeding up peer review, and making the system more flexible. But multiple university researchers interviewed for this report expressed alarm at the underlying vision. Jason Shepherd, a neurobiology professor at the University of Utah, told The Verge the document "looks like it was written by political appointees without any real consultation with scientists." He warned that the assumption science functions like a business is misplaced: "Academic science is different to VC funded startups or tech companies."

Harvard professor Jeffrey Flier, former dean of the medical school, was harsher. He said the report "has no vision for how science works" and "seems blissfully unaware" of the academic environment science needs to flourish. "This is completely insane as an approach to reforming US science funding and operations," Flier said, branding the proposals a "major threat" to scientific independence. Other researchers highlighted internal contradictions in the manifesto—notably, a proposal to radically reduce government support for "life sciences" while increasing support for "foundational research in the biological sciences," categories with substantial overlap that the report never defines or clarifies.

Researchers also criticized the narrow focus on AI as a tool for scientific acceleration. Andreas Karch, a physics professor at the University of Texas at Austin, said the vision is "misguided." While AI may accelerate some progress, "right now the problem is that most science done by AI is absolute slop," he said. Supervision by humans seems "absolutely key," but those humans are trained primarily by universities having their funding slashed. "We may well end up in the situation where AI will have a few major insights buried under mountains of slop, and the number of people with the experience and knowledge to tell the two apart may rapidly dwindle," Karch warned. Carl Bergstrom, a biology professor at the University of Washington, said the plan fundamentally misrepresents the role of US funding agencies—they are not just meant to promote technological discoveries and medical breakthroughs, but to "develop and perpetuate a vibrant STEM ecosystem in the US." "This plan undercuts much of that role, and will have disastrous effects that will ricochet throughout the US economy in years to come," he told The Verge.

The initiative arrives against a backdrop of sweeping cuts, grant cancellations, and institutional upheaval across the federal funding system. Researchers say that reality is difficult to reconcile with the administration's promise of renewal. Claes de Vreese, a professor of AI and society at the University of Amsterdam, called the vision "a fundamental departure from a very successful US science model" and "another attempt to upend the US research university model." He added: "This looks like a golden age for specific groups and likely for tech and venture capitalists." Most researchers who spoke to The Verge were deeply skeptical the plan would usher in a true golden age for American science, with many warning it could cause lasting damage to the research establishment that has long powered U.S. innovation.

The Trump administration's $5 billion（約8000億円） Genesis Mission initiative and the accompanying "Golden Age" science manifesto represent a fundamental recasting of how federal research funding flows in the United States. Rather than supporting universities as the traditional engines of scientific discovery, the new framework channels resources toward individual scientists and private companies while granting political appointees greater authority to block grants. This marks an explicit departure from the postwar model established by Vannevar Bush's 1945 "Science, the Endless Frontier" report—a policy that shaped decades of American research leadership by championing open-ended basic research without immediate commercial pressure.

What distinguishes this moment is not merely the policy shift but the stated justification: framing science through the lens of venture capital, startup culture, and measurable outcomes. The White House science adviser Michael Kratsios brings a background in tech policy and finance, including work at a fund run by Silicon Valley investor Peter Thiel, rather than scientific credentials. That background appears reflected in the manifesto's core assumption—that scientific breakthroughs can be accelerated by identifying promising people and projects, setting clear goals with measurable targets, and cutting work unlikely to deliver quick results. Researchers across the country say this model, however successful in technology and startups, does not align with how foundational science actually operates.

The tension is sharp: basic research often takes years or decades to yield practical value, and some of history's most important discoveries emerged serendipitously from research pursuing entirely different questions. Cutting or deprioritizing work of uncertain value—as the startup model demands—could hollow out the very capacities that made the U.S. a research superpower. One particular irony researchers highlight is that the plan emphasizes AI as a tool for discovery while simultaneously defunding universities that train the experts needed to supervise and evaluate AI-generated research. The result, as one physics professor warned, could be a situation where "AI will have a few major insights buried under mountains of slop, and the number of people with the experience and knowledge to tell the two apart may rapidly dwindle."

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