The three main priorities of the project include a competition to develop systems, a supercomputing facility for engineers and targeted research to advance scientific use cases.

The Department of Energy’s national labs have already partnered up with Japanese research institutions to form working groups that will focus on a subset of AI challenges.

National Labs, other federal agencies, academic institutions and private-sector companies can submit collaborative applications to address the challenges identified by DOE.

The initiative’s director said teams are on track to meet forthcoming deadlines and a minimum viable product will be unveiled in 2026.

A White House official said the challenges are a "direct call to action” to private-sector partners, researchers and other innovators.

The agency is continuing to deepen its collaboration with industry as it works to advance technical priorities amid a tight schedule and forthcoming deadlines.

Execution is underway as forthcoming deadlines, such as developing a cybersecurity strategy and demonstrating initial platform capabilities, creep up.

OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, Microsoft and AWS are among the private industry collaborators that have committed to advancing the Trump administration’s AI goals.

“We just have to act like our life depends on it,” Under Secretary for Science Darío Gil said during a House hearing Wednesday.

An announced restructure of the Department of Energy also includes an office for technology roadmaps.