November 27, 2025
The “Genesis Mission” Executive Order draws a direct analogy to the Manhattan Project to convey the urgency, national scope, and ambition of the new AI initiative.
President Donald J. Trump signed a sweeping Executive Order on Nov. 24, officially launching the “Genesis Mission,” a dedicated, coordinated national initiative to secure global technological supremacy by accelerating the application of artificial intelligence to scientific discovery.
The order frames the effort as a “historic national effort, comparable in urgency and ambition to the Manhattan Project” that will leverage decades of federal scientific investment to solve “the most challenging problems of this century.”
The mandate designates the Department of Energy (DOE) as the lead agency, tasking the Secretary of Energy with establishing and operating the American Science and Security Platform (Platform)—a secure, integrated AI infrastructure designed to harness the world’s most extensive collection of federal scientific datasets.
AI Acceleration as a National Security Imperative
The Genesis Mission seeks to create scientific foundation models and AI agents capable of testing new hypotheses, automating research workflows, and dramatically accelerating breakthroughs across critical national domains.
The President asserts the mission will “strengthen national security, secure energy dominance, enhance workforce productivity, and multiply the return on taxpayer investment into research and development.”
Priority areas identified for the mission include advanced manufacturing, biotechnology, critical materials, nuclear fission and fusion energy, quantum information science, and semiconductors and microelectronics.
The DOE Secretary is mandated to integrate federal resources, including DOE national laboratory supercomputers and secure cloud-based computing environments, into the unified Platform. This infrastructure is intended to serve as the core resource for model training, simulation, and inference across the interagency effort.
The Secretary is also directed to establish formal mechanisms for collaboration with external entities possessing advanced AI capabilities, including through standardized partnership frameworks, user facility partnerships, and clear policies for the commercialization of intellectual property developed under the mission.
A crucial and challenging component of the mission is data integration. Within 120 days of the order’s issuance, the Secretary must identify initial data assets and develop a plan for securely incorporating datasets from federally funded research, academia, and approved private-sector partners. Given the national security implications, the Platform must adhere to strict security requirements, including classification and supply chain security standards.
The order tasks the Assistant to the President for Science and Technology (APST) with providing general leadership and coordination through the National Science and Technology Council (NSTC). To maximize national engagement, the Executive Order emphasizes the need for broad collaboration. The APST and the Secretary are mandated to establish competitive programs for research fellowships, internships, and apprenticeships focused on AI-enabled science, with placements at DOE national laboratories to provide hands-on training and access to the Platform.
The “Genesis Mission” Executive Order draws a direct analogy to the Manhattan Project to convey the urgency, national scope, and ambition of the new AI initiative.
What Was The Manhattan Project?
The Manhattan Project was the unprecedented, top-secret research and development program undertaken by the United States government during World War II to develop the world’s first atomic weapons.
It was a vast, Anglo-American effort that was spurred by fears that Nazi Germany was pursuing similar nuclear capabilities.
It brought together scientific expertise, industrial production, and military coordination, employing nearly 130,000 people at its peak and involving dozens of sites across the U.S., Canada, and the U.K. It cost approximately $2.2 billion (equivalent to about $28 billion in 2024).
The project achieved its monumental goal—developing an entirely new industry and a usable weapon—in an unusually compressed timescale, with most major activity taking place between 1942 and 1945.
The project successfully produced the atomic bombs dropped on Japan in August 1945, helping to bring an end to World War II. It ushered in the nuclear age, laid the foundation for the Department of Energy (DOE) and its national laboratories, and became the organizational model for American “big science” achievements in the latter half of the 20th century.
The mission faces an aggressive timeline, requiring the DOE to demonstrate an initial operating capability of the Platform for at least one of the identified national science and technology challenges within 270 days, subject to available appropriations.
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