Envisioning National Resources for Artificial Intelligence Research: NSF Workshop Report

Workshop Goals This workshop aimed to identify initial challenges and opportunities for national resources for AI research (e.g., compute, data, models, etc.) and to facilitate planning for the envisioned National AI Research Resource (NAIRR). Participants included AI and cyberinfrastructure (CI) experts. Significant Findings 1. AI researchers confront unprecedented scale that goes well beyond generative AI 2. National investments in AI research resources have been insufficient 3. The suboptimal usability of current resources is compromising AI investigation topics 4. The cadence and intensity of AI conference publications is unlike other research areas 5. Better practices for managing local resources are needed 6. Access to AI research resources is very uneven for different institutions 7. There is an opportunity for greater alignment between CI and AI efforts 8. AI research needs warrant unique approaches to CI and to national shared resources Critical Needs Participants identified ten prototypical AI workflows in two major areas with an immediate need for large-scale resources.