Sponsors (2)
The bill accelerates U.S. AI-driven scientific and health advances by funding large, targeted prizes and releasing high-value datasets while concentrating benefits in U.S.-based and better-resourced actors and creating fiscal, equity, privacy, collaboration, and administrative risks.
Researchers, innovators, and U.S.-based AI companies gain access to large, targeted federal prize funding and commercialization incentives (including U.S.-incorporation requirements) that accelerate AI R&D and encourage U.S. commercialization of AI technologies.
Patients with cancer and health systems stand to benefit from a mandated AI cancer grand challenge that awards large cash prizes (minimum $10M for winners) to spur development of diagnostics and treatments.
Scientists and AI developers get publicly listed, high-value datasets and clearer shared targets that reduce duplication, speed progress on foundational scientific problems, and make it easier to build and evaluate models for grand-challenge problems.
Taxpayers may bear substantial new federal costs and opportunity costs from large cash prizes (including mandated $10M minimums and authority for prizes above $50M).
Publishing large scientific datasets risks exposing sensitive information or enabling harmful dual-use applications if privacy protections and misuse mitigations are insufficient.
Requiring winners and recipients to be U.S.-incorporated and prioritizing U.S. citizens/permanent residents can exclude international talent and narrow global collaboration, potentially limiting scientific progress and diplomatic research partnerships.
Based on analysis of 3 sections of legislative text.
Creates an NSF-run AI Grand Challenges prize program and directs OSTP to publish AI-ready datasets for foundational scientific problems.
Creates a federal AI prize program run by the National Science Foundation to fund and accelerate research, development, and commercialization that solve defined “grand challenges” in AI across areas like health, national security, energy, environment, transportation, manufacturing, materials, and cross-cutting AI problems (robustness, safety, bias, explainability). The program must use Federal prize authorities, post clear problem statements, success metrics, and validation protocols via Challenge.gov, and include a required cancer-focused AI grand challenge. Directs the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy to coordinate science agencies to publish AI-ready datasets tied to foundational scientific problems that are suitable for AI-enabled solutions. The bill requires agency coordination, public input when picking challenges, and gives the NSF Director authority to set eligibility and run the prize program within a year of enactment, but does not itself appropriate funds.
Introduced February 9, 2026 by Ted Lieu · Last progress February 9, 2026