Sponsors (3)
Introduced February 9, 2026 by Cory Anthony Booker · Last progress February 9, 2026
The bill trades increased federal investment, public datasets, and prize-driven incentives to accelerate targeted AI breakthroughs (especially in health and national resilience) against higher taxpayer costs, privacy risks, potential concentration of benefits among well-resourced actors, and possible diversion of effort away from broad investigator-led science.
Researchers, AI developers, and small businesses gain access to well-defined federal 'grand challenges' with public problem statements, curated datasets, and large cash prizes (minimum $1M; cancer prizes at least $10M), accelerating goal-oriented R&D and commercialization across health, security, environment, and other areas.
Patients with cancer and other chronic conditions could benefit from an AI-enabled cancer grand challenge explicitly designed to increase quality-adjusted life years (QALYs), potentially speeding medical advances and improved treatments.
Federally funded research becomes more coordinated around high-impact, AI-addressable scientific problems (through shared datasets and problem definitions), reducing duplication and improving targeting of federal research resources.
Taxpayers may bear substantial costs to fund large prize awards and the staff/time needed to prepare and publish curated datasets, increasing federal spending and administrative burdens.
Publishing curated datasets for public challenges could create privacy and security risks if sensitive information is not properly protected, potentially harming vulnerable individuals.
Well-funded private firms may have an advantage competing for large cash prizes, making it harder for smaller research teams, academic groups, or startups to win and potentially concentrating benefits among large organizations.
Based on analysis of 3 sections of legislative text.
Creates an NSF-run AI grand challenges prize program with public problem statements and metrics and requires at least one $10M+ cancer AI prize.
Creates a new federal prize program run by the National Science Foundation to fund and accelerate solutions to major AI “grand challenges” across many domains. The NSF must set up the program within 12 months, solicit public input, publish clear problem statements and success metrics, and run prizes (using existing prize authority) including at least one AI-enabled cancer grand challenge that awards winners at least $10 million each. The Office of Science and Technology Policy must coordinate federal science agencies to identify and publish datasets useful for AI-driven grand-challenge work.