UVA to Co-Host AI-Powered Astronomy Institute

The only thing more difficult to imagine than the immensity of the cosmos may be the enormous amount of data astronomers are collecting about it. However, a multi-million-dollar program funded jointly by the National Science Foundation and the Simons Foundation, a nonprofit organization aimed at advancing the frontiers of scientific research, will soon allow researchers at the University of Virginia and other leading research institutions to build a new breed of astronomical tools.

Using artificial intelligence, these tools will be able to process massive data sets and accelerate the pace of astronomical discovery. 

The new National Artificial Intelligence Research Institutes for astronomical sciences, part of the NSF-led National Artificial Intelligence Research Institutes program, recently announced the formation of two new institutes developed to explore the use of AI to process astronomical data. One of those institutes, the NSF-Simons AI Institute for Cosmic Origins (NSF-Simons CosmicAI), a collaboration between the University of Virginia, the University of Texas at Austin, the University of Utah, UCLA and the NSF’s NOIRLab and the National Radio Astronomy Observatory, will aim to speed up some of the most time-consuming aspects of astronomical research. 

The institute will receive $20 million over five years to process and analyze large amounts of data and create and evaluate simulations of complex phenomena like the impact of Dark Matter on the properties of galaxies. The institute’s mission also includes democratizing access to astronomical data and analysis by developing a powerful AI-based assistant that will provide accurate responses to scientific queries and optimizing AI for scientific applications. 

“The massive amount of data that will be gathered in the coming years by large-scale astronomical projects is simply too vast and rich to be fully explored with existing methods,” said NSF Director Sethuraman Panchanathan. “With reliable and trustworthy AI in their toolbox, everyone from students to senior researchers will have exciting new ways to gain valuable insights leading to amazing discoveries that might otherwise remain hidden in the data.” 

The NSF-Simons CosmicAI Institute will bring $2.7 million in funding to Grounds that will support faculty, postdoctoral and graduate research and will fund an AI in Astronomy conference in Charlottesville in 2029. One of the institute’s project teams, led by UVA assistant professor and computational astrophysicist Paul Torrey, and astronomy professor Nitya Kallivayalil will build AI-enabled tools to explore the nature of Dark Matter. 

“Competing Dark Matter models can have subtle, but important impacts on galaxy structure,” Torrey said. “AI provides robust approaches for building flexible bridges between Dark Matter theory and our observed Universe. Such techniques will likely be instrumental in our understanding of the nature of Dark Matter.”

The institute will also support the work of additional UVA faculty and graduate researchers, including astrochemists Ilse Cleeves and Robin Garrod, who will be working to develop tools that will help them make complex calculations millions of times faster than current methods allow.

A second institute, the NSF-Simons AI Institute for the Sky (NSF-Simons SkAI) based at Northwestern University, will tackle complex problems in astrophysics and astronomy, from the physics of how planets and asteroids form to the role that dark matter and dark energy play. 

Both institutes will provide training and education for early-career researchers and students over the next five years and will conduct outreach activities to share their innovations and help train the AI-literate workforce of tomorrow. 

“This institute will not only facilitate cutting edge science, but it will allow us to recruit the best graduate students, postdocs and faculty to join our efforts to make UVA a nationwide hub in AI research,” Torrey said.

“The NSF-Simons AI Institute for Cosmic Origins inaugurates a new age of discovery for astronomers,” said Christa Acampora, Buckner W. Clay Professor of Philosophy and dean of UVA’s College and Graduate School of Arts & Sciences. “Under the leadership of faculty members like professor Torrey and professor Kallivayalil, it will create unprecedented opportunities for our researchers and our graduate students explore the universe and unlock its secrets.” 

Launched in 2019, the NSF-led AI Institutes program is part of a broad federal effort to advance a cohesive approach to AI-related opportunities and risks and the goals outlined in the White House's 2023 “Executive Order on the Safe, Secure, and Trustworthy Development and Use of Artificial Intelligence.”