Genesis Mission Seeks to Bolster Scientific Discovery, National Security, Energy Dominance

On November 24, 2025, President Donald Trump issued an executive order (EO) to launch the "Genesis Mission" aimed at boosting innovation through the use of artificial intelligence (AI). The EO bulds on Trump's executive order "Removing Barriers to American Leadership in Artifical Intelligence" (January 23, 2025) and the Trump Administration's "Winning the Race, America's AI Action Plan" (July 2025). According to the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), the Genesis Mission will focus on addressing three "key challenges of national importance":

• American Energy Domiance. The Genesis Mission will aim to accelerate advanced nuclear, fusion and grid moderization using AI to provide affordable and reliable energy for the country.
• Advancing Discovery Science. Through investment through the Department of Energy and in collaboration with industry, accelerate the building of the "quantum econosystem" that will seed scientific discoveries in the AI space.
• Ensuring National Security. By creating and advancing AI technologies for national security mission, assist in deplying technology and systems to help ensure the safety and reliability of the U.S. nuclear stockpile and accelerate the development of "defense-ready" materials.¹

The Genesis Mission is a coordinated national initiative led by the Department of Energy that aims to accelerate scientific discovery by leveraging various forms of AI. The order aspires to position the U.S. as a global leader in AI-driven science and research, recognizing the need for a coordinated, ambitious effort. Its goal is to integrate federal scientific datasets, supercomputing resources and research infrastructure into a unified AI platform enabling foundational model training, hypothesis testing and automated research workflows.

The EO explicitly frames the Mission as a national effort "comparable in urgency and ambition to the Manhattan Project," intended to dramatically accelerate scientific discovery, strengthen national security, secure energy dominance, enhance workforce productivity and amplify the return on federal research and development (R&D) investments.

Key Tasks and Objectives

• Secretary of Energy: Explicitly designated as the lead for implementing the Mission within DOE, with authority to set priorities, integrate DOE resources and appoint a senior political appointee to oversee day-to-day operations. Note: This national laboratory-centric approach is notably influenced by recommendations from the National Security Commission on Emerging Biotechnology (NSCEB), especially Sections 4.1A to 4.3A of its recent report. NSCEB called for a coordinated federal effort to harness national labs, integrate datasets and computing resources, and create a unified platform for biotechnology and scientific innovation. The EO's strategy directly reflects these recommendations, aiming to overcome fragmentation and accelerate progress in critical scientific domains. The EO mirrors these recommendations directly, though it does not cite NSCEB. The Secretary of Energy is tasked with establishing and operating the American Science and Security Platform to serve as the infrastructure for effectuating the Genesis Mission.
• Assistant to the President for Science and Technology (APST): Tasked with coordinating interagency efforts to align national objectives and maximize impact and specifically charged with providing "general leadership" of the Mission through the National Science and Technology Council (NSTC).
• American Science and Security Platform: Intended to provide high-performance computing, AI modeling frameworks, secure data access and tools for autonomous experimentation. The EO provides a detailed list of required capabilities (e.g., AI agents, domain-specific foundation models, synthetic data generation, secure cloud-based AI environments, robotic laboratories and automated manufacturing workflows) and establishes specific deadlines for identifying computing resources, data assets and initial operating capability.
• Priority Domains: The mission aims to address challenges in advanced manufacturing, biotechnology, critical materials, nuclear energy, quantum information science, semiconductors and microelectronics. The EO reinforces that these domains must align with National Science and Technology Memorandum No. 2.
• Partnerships: The initiative seeks to foster collaboration with academia, private sector and international partners, with robust security and intellectual property (IP) protections. The EO goes further by requiring standardized partnership frameworks, uniform cybersecurity and vetting standards, and explicit policies for ownership, licensing and trade-secret protections.
• Reporting: Annual progress reports are planned to track operational status, scientific advances and partnership outcomes.

Necessary Lab Infrastructure

A central feature of the Genesis Mission is its reliance on the DOE's national laboratories. This approach reflects a direct response to recommendations from the NSCEB. In its recent report (Sections 4.1A to 4.3A), NSCEB warned that the U.S. risks losing its competitive edge in biotechnology unless it leverages existing national lab infrastructure, integrates federal datasets and computing resources, and creates a unified platform for scientific innovation. The EO clearly operationalizes this model but frames it within DOE's broader scientific mission, not solely biotechnology. The EO strategy closely mirrors the recommendations from the NSCEB, aiming to overcome fragmentation in federal research and accelerate progress across critical domains such as biotechnology, advanced manufacturing, nuclear energy, quantum information science and microelectronics.

The order tasks the Energy Secretary with implementing this vision, coordinating with the APST and other agencies to align national objectives and maximize impact. The American Science and Security Platform, as described in the EO, is intended to provide high-performance computing, secure data access and tools for autonomous experimentation, again echoing NSCEB's call for a centralized, secure and collaborative research infrastructure. The EO also requires the DOE to identify computing assets within 90 days, initial datasets within 120 days, robotic laboratory capabilities within 240 days and initial operating capability for at least one national challenge within 270 days.

Reliance on Partnerships

The Genesis Mission also seeks to foster partnerships with academia, the private sector and international collaborators, while maintaining robust security and IP protections. Annual progress reports are planned to track operational status, scientific advances and partnership outcomes, ensuring transparency and accountability. The EO additionally directs APST and NSTC to coordinate funding opportunities, shared experimental resources, fellowships, apprenticeships and agency data integration – reflecting a broader federal workforce and ecosystem-building component.

NSCEB's recommendations shape this initiative's framing and priorities, and its future will be influenced by congressional engagement.. However, unlike NSCEB, the EO itself does not articulate any formal congressional role, instead relying on executive authority and "subject to available appropriations" constraints.

Ultimately, the Genesis Mission sets ambitious aims for AI-driven scientific progress by leveraging the nation's laboratory infrastructure and fostering broad collaboration while recognizing that its success will depend on effective implementation and ongoing support from policymakers and stakeholders.

Notes

¹ Department of Energy Announcement, November 24, 2025.