1,400 scientists
Nine national labs
One shared goal: partnering with the government to advance AI-driven scientific discovery
In a first-of-its-kind event, the US National Laboratories and OpenAI brought together over 1,400 scientists across nine national labs for a “1,000 Scientist AI Jam Session” today — a deep dive into how AI can accelerate breakthroughs that keep the US at the forefront of global scientific innovation
From Argonne to Oak Ridge, Berkeley to Livermore, researchers put OpenAI’s latest AI models, including o3-mini, to the test — applying them to some of the world’s toughest scientific challenges. The goal? To improve future AI systems so that they are built with scientists’ needs in mind. As Rick Stevens, Associate Director of Argonne National Laboratory put it: it’s like a bunch of jazz musicians coming together and jamming to figure out scientific problems with AI
That is a powerful jam session
America has historically thrived when the public and private sectors worked together for the common good. From the automobile to the internet — US led ingenuity has generated economic growth that drove progress and expanded opportunities and freedoms
However, collaboration goes beyond the typical public-private partnerships, forming a “common sector” where deep tech is integrated into research from the start to accelerate discovery in the Age of intelligence
We believe that by helping scientists achieve breakthroughs, AI can benefit the greatest number of people
I am working in AI partly because I think we’ll see this technology translated into incredible progress in children' s education; health care outcomes; and scientific progress
At Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee, US Secretary of Energy Chris Wright and OpenAI Co-Founder and President Greg Brockman discussed how AI can strengthen US leadership in science and technology
This event builds on OpenAI’s ongoing partnership with the national labs, including deploying advanced reasoning models on Nvidia’s supercomputer at Los Alamos and exploring how multimodal AI can safely advance biosciences. It also continues the long-standing tradition of public-private partnership in the US. Most importantly, it reinforces why democratic AI must win out over autocratic AI in the global competition between the US and China over AI’s future
A special thank you to Secretary Wright, Rick Stevens, Courtney Corley, Brian Spears, and Prasanna Balaprakash for leading this effort and finding time to participate in the discussions. And a huge shoutout to event maestro James Donovan and my other incredible colleagues who made this event possible: Felipe Millon, Lane Dilg, Katrina Mulligan, Michelle (Bailhe) Fradin, Alex Carney, Aaron Wilkowitz, Mohammed H., and Aaron Jaech
Stay tuned for a report from the national labs summarizing key findings on how AI should be used by the scientific community