Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory is a central driver of the national Genesis Mission, a U.S. Department of Energy initiative leveraging the collective power of 17 national laboratories, research universities, and industry partners to accelerate scientific discovery. The collaborative effort intends to double the productivity and impact of American science within the next decade by integrating artificial intelligence across the national research landscape; Fermilab’s expertise in high-energy physics, advanced computing, and microelectronics will be crucial to achieving this goal. “The Genesis Mission represents an opportunity to transform how America does science,” said Fermilab Director Norbert Holtkamp, emphasizing the potential of combining AI and national laboratory capabilities to strengthen U.S. leadership in particle physics and beyond. Through projects like AXESS, which aims to revolutionize chip design, and contributions to the American Science Cloud, Fermilab is prepared to tackle ambitious challenges and enhance operational efficiency.
Fermilab’s Role in the Genesis Mission & National Labs
Department of Energy national laboratories are deploying artificial intelligence to create adaptive and autonomous particle accelerators, promising innovations across multiple disciplines. Simultaneously, Fermilab is advancing next-generation microelectronics, aiming to secure U.S. technological leadership and bolster national security; the lab’s AXESS project, for example, intends to revolutionize custom chip design for scientific applications by compressing the design process from months to minutes. Beyond chip design, Fermilab is contributing to the American Science Cloud by providing the Fermi Data Platform, leveraging decades of experience handling data from particle collisions to create a national resource. The lab’s involvement extends to initiatives like FemtoMind, applying AI to complex calculations in Lattice Quantum Chromodynamics, and TREASURE, standardizing data from particle colliders for AI-ready analysis. “AI is most powerful when it connects expertise across domains and institutions,” said Nhan Tran, head of AI coordination at Fermilab. “Through the Genesis Mission, we can integrate data, tools and expertise from all 17 national labs, creating a unified AI ecosystem that accelerates breakthroughs beyond what any single lab could achieve.”
AXESS Project: AI-Driven Microelectronics for Extreme Environments
Fermilab is addressing a critical bottleneck in scientific advancement: the protracted timeline for designing specialized microelectronics. Demand for custom chips capable of functioning in harsh conditions, like those found in particle accelerators or deep space, continues to grow, but traditional design processes can stretch from months into years. The lab’s AXESS project, short for Accelerating eXtreme Environment Specs-to-Silicon, directly confronts this challenge by integrating artificial intelligence into the chip design workflow. This initiative isn’t merely about speeding up existing methods; it’s about fundamentally altering the process, aiming to compress design cycles from months to minutes. AXESS builds upon Fermilab’s established expertise in creating resilient microelectronics, honed through years of experience building chips for cryogenic temperatures and intense radiation environments. By leveraging AI, the project seeks to accelerate design and enhance national competitiveness in a strategically vital technological area.
This focus on microelectronics is explicitly linked to broader national goals, positioning the project to secure U.S. technological leadership, economic prosperity, and national security. Beyond faster design, AXESS is intended to be a catalyst for innovation across multiple scientific disciplines. The ability to rapidly prototype and deploy custom chips will accelerate research in fields ranging from medicine to materials science and energy, allowing researchers across disciplines to access datasets needed to accelerate discoveries and effectively transforming past physics data into a national resource.
AI is most powerful when it connects expertise across domains and institutions.
Nhan Tran, head of AI coordination at Fermilab
Lattice QCD & FemtoMind: Accelerating Theoretical Calculations
Fermilab physicists are deepening our understanding of the strong force through advancements in Lattice Quantum Chromodynamics, or Lattice QCD, contributing to a multi-lab effort called FemtoMind. Lattice QCD provides the theoretical framework for understanding how quarks bind together to form protons, and the complexity of these calculations demands innovative approaches. FemtoMind aims to accelerate these calculations and identify previously unseen patterns within computer simulations that probe the structure of matter at the proton scale, ultimately refining our grasp of the fundamental building blocks of the universe. This initiative leverages agentic artificial intelligence, a relatively new field where AI systems act autonomously to achieve specific goals, to overcome computational bottlenecks inherent in Lattice QCD. The sheer scale of these simulations requires immense computing power, and AI offers the potential to not only speed up calculations but also to discover subtle relationships within the data that might otherwise remain hidden.
Beyond FemtoMind, Fermilab is also involved in the TREASURE initiative, which focuses on preparing existing datasets for AI analysis. This program standardizes data from past experiments, including those conducted at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider and Fermilab’s Tevatron, creating AI-ready representations of physics data. By converting research papers, datasets, and code into accessible formats, TREASURE will enable scientists to perform cross-experiment analysis and search for physics beyond the Standard Model, effectively unlocking a wealth of knowledge accumulated over decades.
We’re also excited for what AI can mean for our operations at Fermilab.
American Science Cloud & TREASURE: AI-Ready Data Access
The ambitious Genesis Mission is establishing a foundation for a new era of scientific productivity by prioritizing accessible data, and Fermilab is playing a key role in unlocking that potential. Beyond simply generating data from experiments like those at the Large Hadron Collider and the now-retired Tevatron, the initiative focuses on transforming it into a broadly useful national resource. Complementing this effort is the TREASURE initiative, designed to standardize data from both current and past colliders, creating AI-ready representations of physics data for cross-experiment analysis. By making previously siloed information readily available and compatible with artificial intelligence tools, the Genesis Mission, with Fermilab’s support, aims to fundamentally reshape how science is conducted in the United States.
The Genesis Mission represents a once-in-a-generation opportunity to transform how America does science.
