Energy adds more AI startups to Genesis Mission Consortium

Scale AI is joining the Department of Energy’s Genesis Mission consortium, serving as the collaborative hub for working groups and structured partnerships, the vendor shared with FedScoop prior to its announcement Thursday. 

The technology provider is the latest private-sector partner to join DOE’s Genesis Mission Consortium as the agency continues building up its roster. Emerald AI and SambaNova Systems have also jumped on board in recent weeks. 

For Scale AI, the partnership represents a further expansion of its role in the Genesis Mission and comes after it signed a memorandum of understanding earlier this year. 

“Scale’s contribution to the Genesis Mission builds on the work we’ve been doing for years: creating high-quality evaluation benchmarks, preparing data for advanced AI systems, developing AI agents for complex workflows, and supporting computer vision and robotics applications,” a Scale AI spokesperson told FedScoop. “We’re excited to bring those capabilities to the consortium as Genesis moves from planning into implementation.”

DOE launched the consortium in February as a way to deepen public-private partnerships that it believes will fuel the larger initiative. Scale AI joins the likes of Accenture, Amazon Web Services, Databricks and IBM. 

“It’s led by us, but it collectively needs the entire U.S. to be able to manage it efficiently,” Bridget Carper Arnone, DOE’s deputy CIO for architecture, engineering, technology and innovation, said during a GovExec event in Washington, D.C., on Thursday. 

In addition to the consortium’s working groups, DOE set up a $293 million funding opportunity for interdisciplinary teams in March. Applicants were required to set up teams made up of national laboratories, private-sector companies and academic institutions. Awardees will be announced next week at the inaugural Genesis Mission Summit in D.C. 

The Energy Department is already making some headway on its goals and is forming alliances with other nations to accelerate aspirations. The agency is also advocating for more funds from Congress to propel the effort further.

Internally at DOE, the Genesis Mission is acting like a rising tide, bolstering other efforts.

“This has been a priority to execute on the Genesis Mission and move faster,” Conner Prochaska, DOE chief AI officer and director of the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy, told FedScoop last month. “We’re going to run after this, and the secondary beneficiaries are everybody else.”