Energy needs ‘a lot more’ funding to reach Genesis Mission goals, official says
Funding has emerged as a key factor in determining whether the Department of Energy can keep pace with its ambitious Genesis Mission timeline, according to Carl Coe, the agency’s chief of staff.
“This is a massive project,” Coe said Tuesday at AI Talks, an event presented by Scoop News Group.
The Genesis Mission is framed by the Trump administration as a national effort to stand up supercomputers, double the productivity of the country’s research-and-development budget and launch a platform that combines quantum, high-performance computing and AI advancements. The effort kicked off in November via an executive order.
“Even though the White House allocated a good amount [of funding], we need a lot more,” said Coe, who previously served as DOE’s Department of Government Efficiency lead.
Budget season is underway with the release of the White House’s agency-level funding proposals earlier this month, offering a peek behind the curtain at what could potentially be coming DOE’s way.
If approved by Congress, DOE would receive $1.2 billion to set up multiple AI supercomputers as part of its recently established Office of Artificial Intelligence and Quantum. Its Office of Science would get $7.1 billion to support the Genesis Mission initiative, among other projects. The Office of Science budget, while significant, represents a 13% decrease from the appropriations enacted for fiscal 2026.
The agency has already set a $293 million-plus funding opportunity in motion for interdisciplinary teams to apply for a chance to tackle one of the core challenges identified by the Energy Department. The teams are expected to be announced in July.
The Request for Application followed a December announcement of $320 million in investments for the American Science Cloud and the Transformational AI Models Consortium, among other Genesis Mission-related projects.
In an interview with FedScoop earlier this year, Genesis Mission Director Darío Gil said the agency was using fiscal 2026 resources appropriated by Congress to “launch a lot of these efforts.” The agency has also leaned on investments from private-sector partners.
DOE leaders have stopped short of sharing how much the agency expects to spend in total. Coe said it has been challenging to define “exactly how much it is we need.”
“It’s a bigger number than you can see,” Coe said. “The out years is what we really need to solidify.”
Getting programs funded can be challenging. Luckily for DOE, however, the Genesis Mission has received bipartisan support thus far.
“Some real fiscal hawks on the Hill are leaning in and supporting this [on] both sides of the aisle,” Coe said.
The plan is to continue rallying support from the purse holders and top officials. Part of that strategy hinges on the agency’s ability to show its work. As outlined in the presidential directive in November, the Energy secretary was required to have developed a cybersecurity strategy by the end of last month to protect datasets used in the Genesis Mission projects. This summer, the secretary must show the initial capabilities of the platform.
“We’re going to be doing demos at the White House and at the Hill so people can visualize some of these things,” Coe said. “Sometimes people just need to see it, to feel it, and I think that will solidify things.”
