To join our email list, or if you have any questions, please reach out to us at ASAP@rounds.senate.gov and ASAP@heinrich.senate.gov.
about asap
The American Science Acceleration Project (ASAP) is a national initiative sponsored by Senator Rounds and Senator Martin Heinrich to make American science ten times faster by 2030. The U.S. has an opportunity to leverage emerging technologies, especially AI, to expedite the discovery and deployment of transformative advancements in biotechnology, materials science, medical technology, energy, agriculture and other scientific domains. We can, and must, build the scientific infrastructure necessary to solve grand challenges like harnessing fusion energy on the electrical grid, deploying cheap and scalable superconducting materials and curing cancer.
Accomplishing this will require empowering our scientists with the tools they need to be dramatically more effective. In the 1950s, we invested in an interstate highway system to facilitate commerce and support national defense. In this decade, our nation needs to: make an equally ambitious investment in data, compute and AI to build a superhighway for science; enable broader collaboration; and streamline the deployment process by reducing unnecessary obstacles to innovation. The public and private sectors should work together on these pillars:
- DATA: American scientific data should be accessible through intuitive, secure and interoperable platforms. We must have the world’s largest collection of scientific data from consenting parties, including making existing data AI-ready and building infrastructure to collect new scientific data points at scale.
- COMPUTE: Researchers in the U.S. must have access to the world’s largest supply of advanced computing, including the supporting networking and energy infrastructure.
- AI: We must develop revolutionary AI capabilities to accelerate science, including scientific copilots that innovate routine tasks and leave scientists free to focus on work that requires human ingenuity. The U.S. will set the stage for responsible development and use of artificial general intelligence capabilities that will eventually unlock unparalleled opportunities for the American people.
- COLLABORATION: There is immense, untapped brilliance across our nation. We must enable people with expertise from across scientific disciplines to collaborate in advancing American science.
- PROCESS: Streamlining regulatory processes and adopting AI-enabled automated testing protocols can result in faster time-to-market for new products while exceeding current safety and efficacy standards. We must build the capacity to get vaccines and therapeutics to market in weeks or months rather than years.
We have an unprecedented opportunity to shape the scientific and geopolitical landscape for generations to come. We call on leaders from government, industry, academia, civil service and philanthropy to join us in this historic effort.
Supporting Organizations
From South Dakota: Avera Health; Dakota State University; Sanford Health; South Dakota School of Mines and Technology; South Dakota Science and Technology Authority (SDSTA); South Dakota State University; and University of South Dakota.
Other organizations: Abundance Institute; Academic Institutions of the New Mexico AI Consortium; Activate; AdvaMed; AiEDGE Summit; Align to Innovate; AMD; American Chemical Society; American Security Fund; Americans for Responsible Innovation; Anthropic; Association of American Universities; Association of Public and Land-grant Universities; Astera Institute; Black Tech Street; Broad Institute; Carnegie Mellon University; Center for Data Innovation; Cerebras; CHAI; Computing Research Association; Convergent Research; Energy Sciences Coalition; EqualAI; Fathom; Federation of American Scientists; Foundation for American Innovation; FutureHouse; Ginkgo Bioworks; Gladstone AI; Good Science Project; Google; Hewlett Packard Enterprise; Hugging Face; IBM; IEEE-USA; Inclusive Abundance; Information Technology Industry Council; In-Q-Tel; Institute for AI Policy and Strategy; Institute for Progress; Intel; Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Microsoft; New Mexico AI Labs; New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology; New Mexico State University; Omidyar Network; OpenAI; OpenMined; Renaissance Philanthropy; Roadrunner Venture Studios; Salesforce; Samsung; Scale AI; SeedAI; Software Information Industry Association; Special Competitive Studies Project Action Program; Stanford University; STR; Task Force on American Innovation; TechNet; Tulane Medicine; UbiQD; University of Florida; University of New Mexico; VentureWell; Wilson Center STIP; and Woodruff Scientific.