WEEK OF SEPT 30, 2024

What’s Ahead

Intel Clean Room D1D/D1X Plant Oregon — Production and cleanroom employees at work in a semiconductor fabrication facility.

Intel Corporation

CHIPS Workforce and Manufacturing Programs Issue First Awards

The Department of Commerce announced the first awards last week for the National Semiconductor Technology Center’s new Workforce Center for Excellence, which will receive $250 million from the department over ten years. The awards total $11.5 million for seven institutions and are expected to train and employ 12,000 people over the next two years, Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said in a press call. One award will establish the Center for Education of Microchip Designers at UCLA, which will equip hundreds of undergraduate and graduate students to design, fabricate, and test their own chips, in partnership with four other universities. Other funded projects target semiconductor technicians, microelectronics students, and hardware verification engineers. The department is still in the process of siting the first three semiconductor R&D facilities in the NSTC, which are intended to become operational over the next four years.

Other components of the CHIPS Act also saw progress last week. The National Science Foundation announced a $30 million funding opportunity to establish a hub that will manage the National Network for Microelectronics Education, which will prepare people for roles in the microelectronics workforce. The department also announced the first finalized award from the CHIPS incentive program for commercial fabrication facilities: $123 million to expand and modernize the Polar Semiconductor manufacturing facility in Minnesota. The incentive program has announced tens of billions of dollars in preliminary awards but Polar is the first company to receive funds.

DOE AI Research Legislation Gaining Momentum

The House Science Committee advanced bipartisan legislation last week that would establish an AI research program at the Department of Energy with a recommended budget of $300 million per year over the next five years. The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee also planned to advance its version of the bill last week but postponed the meeting. Both bills call for DOE to develop AI suited to science and national security applications, build AI risk mitigation programs, and coordinate AI-related efforts among federal agencies, industry, and academia. However, the Senate version recommends a considerably larger budget of $2.4 billion per year over five years, a portion of which would go toward creating at least eight AI R&D Centers. The House version by contrast would set a lower minimum, calling for DOE to create at least two “multidisciplinary artificial intelligence research institutes.”

In addition to the DOE bill, the House Science Committee advanced a bill that would direct the National Institute of Standards and Technology to expand its collection of AI-related security vulnerabilities and develop standards for managing such vulnerabilities. It also voted to reauthorize the National Windstorm Impact Reduction Program through 2029 and direct it to address wind-driven rain and fire as well as storm surge, among other priorities. The committee also advanced a bill that would recommend Congress appropriate $400 million per year through 2027 for DOE to carry out R&D related to small modular reactors, including awards for up to two grid-scale demonstration projects.

House Republicans Press Case Against US-China Research Ties

Republicans on the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party published a report last week calling for stricter oversight of research collaboration between the U.S. and China on technologies with potential military applications. In addition to reviewing Department of Defense-funded research co-authored with individuals affiliated with Chinese universities over the past decade, the report includes case studies of six unnamed researchers who received DOD funding and went on to create labs and institutes in China or continued to collaborate closely with defense researchers in China as examples of the “tech transfer pipeline.” The report also scrutinizes joint U.S.-China research institutes led by Georgia Tech, UC Berkeley, and Pittsburgh University.

Georgia Tech and Berkeley have contested the report’s characterizations according to an article by the New York Times, noting for instance that the Georgia Tech Shenzhen Institute never conducted any research, contrary to how it was depicted in the report. Georgia Tech nevertheless announced earlier this month that it will withdraw from the institute. “Georgia Tech did the right thing for U.S. national security by shutting down its PRC-based joint institute, and UC Berkeley and other universities should follow suit,” said Committee Chair John Moolenaar (R-MI) in a press release accompanying the report. “We also must ban research collaboration with blacklisted entities, enact stricter guardrails on emerging technology research, and hold American universities accountable through passing the DETERRENT Act,” referring to pending legislation that would lower reporting thresholds for foreign gifts and contracts and restrict certain partnerships absent waivers from the Department of Education. The act is sponsored by Education and Workforce Committee Chair Virginia Foxx (R-NC), whose committee also contributed to the report.

New Space Commerce Advisory Panel Begins Work

The Advisory Committee for Excellence in Space will hold its first public meeting Thursday. ACES is the product of a reorganization earlier this year of the Advisory Committee on Commercial Remote Sensing, which was originally established in 2002. The new advisory committee’s members were announced earlier this month and include a mix of experts from universities, nonprofits, and the commercial space industry. NOAA’s Office of Space Commerce, which ACES advises, is currently developing a system to coordinate satellite traffic. The office announced the contractors who will provide data services for the project last week and has just begun delivering safety information to beta testers.

Also On Our Radar

The House passed its NASA reauthorization bill last week by a vote of 366-21. A Senate version of the bill has yet to be introduced.
The Senate confirmed geographer Mike Sfraga as the first U.S. ambassador-at-large for Arctic affairs by a vote of 55-36 last week. The Biden administration created the ambassadorship in 2022 to advance U.S. policy in the Arctic and engage with stakeholders in the region, both foreign and domestic.
The Department of Energy has approved construction of the High-Energy Upgrade for the Linac Coherent Light Source at SLAC National Accelerator Lab. The upgrade will more than double the accelerator’s maximum X-ray energy output and is set to be completed by 2030 with experiments beginning as soon as 2027.
The National Academies will release a report on the state of the U.S. biomedical research enterprise on Tuesday and a report on atmospheric methane removal on Wednesday.
The National Academies will launch a congressionally mandated evaluation of the Advanced Research Projects Agency–Energy’s mission and goals next Monday.