Trump has big AI and quantum ambitions: this scientist’s job is to make them reality

Darío Gil is the science chief at the US Department of Energy. Credit: Aaron Schwartz/Bloomberg via Getty At a time when the administration of US President Donald Trump is trying to slash federal spending on science , Darío Gil is in an enviable position. As under-secretary for science for the US Department of Energy (DoE), he presides over programmes that the administration prizes: those advancing artificial intelligence and quantum science. Trump’s AI ‘Genesis Mission’: what are the risks and opportunities? But he’s also got the unenviable task of convincing scientists that these fields deserve the massive investments they are receiving — at a time when researchers are worried about securing funding for basic research and losing jobs to AI . Last week, his agency announced its goal of building the world’s first ‘fault tolerant’ quantum computer for solving scientific problems by 2028, in response to Trump’s executive order on quantum innovation. Also on Gil’s to-do list: boost researchers’ confidence in AI through the administration’s US$600-million Genesis mission, which launched last November . As part of Genesis, the DoE has been tasked with developing an overarching AI platform, imbued with a variety of models, that can connect and query scientific instruments, supercomputers and data sets at the country’s 17 national laboratories. …