WASHINGTON – As the Genesis Mission Summit kicked off here Wednesday, the Department of Energy announced its selection of 278 projects under the Genesis Mission request for applications (RFAs).
The Genesis Mission, established through President Donald Trump’s November 2025 executive order, aims to bring use of artificial intelligence (AI) into DOE’s operations and real-life applications. DOE released a solicitation for national laboratories, domestic industry and higher education institutions in March.
Of the 278 awards, 168 are led by universities, 87 by DOE and National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) national laboratories, 19 by companies and four led by nonprofit organizations. The recipients were selected following a “competitive review process,” according to DOE’s press release.
Across the 278 awards, 342 institutions are involved.
Secretary of Energy Chris Wright said during the opening panel of the summit that over 5,000 applications were submitted to the RFA, calling it the “greatest response to any DOE outreach ever.”
“We had over 400 people at the Department of Energy and across our national labs who worked their butts off to evaluate all of these applications from businesses, from universities, from the national labs to find the 278 that were just absolutely exceptional,” Wright said.
Wright told the summit attendees that the first Phase II award of the solicitation is a three-year, $60 million investment in nuclear energy through the Prometheus project to support AI. The Prometheus project is a 32-partner collaboration between several DOE national labs, including Idaho, Oak Ridge, Sandia and Argonne, that aims to use AI to cut nuclear research costs.
Nuclear energy has often been cited as a power source for AI data centers, as the energy source is seen as a clean and baseload power. Wright said that nuclear energy has been difficult to build in the United States because of its cost, but with the Genesis Mission effort, he said that he expects AI can reduce some nuclear-related costs.
There will be a “giant AI effort to design, permit, construct and operate a nuclear power plant,” Wright said. “Build it at half the cost, operate it at half the cost, improve the safety of it. Like massive, massive wins are coming.”
Dario Gil, DOE undersecretary for science, said during the summit that the other Phase II awards are expected to be announced in the fall.