On January 24th, 2024, the NSF’s National Artificial Intelligence Research Resource (NAIRR) working group released a Request for Information to, “gather current and anticipated research and education use cases for the NAIRR Pilot and to also identify current and anticipated challenges and barriers that researchers and educators may face in accessing and using AI resources and tools for their activities”.

The field of AI is evolving at a breathtaking pace, becoming increasingly integral to various research domains and educational settings. However, accessing large-scale computing resources, AI-ready datasets, and pretrained models, which are necessary to conduct AI research, can be a significant barrier to entry for researchers, educators, and students.

The goal for the NAIRR is to establish a shared national infrastructure that equips researchers and educators with these essential computational resources to establish a significant and skilled AI workforce and to conduct groundbreaking AI research at institutions across the country. Furthermore, the goal of the NAIRR is to make the tools necessary to study and use AI, “accessible to the broad research and education communities in a manner that advances trustworthy AI and protects privacy, civil rights, and civil liberties”.

Contributing to this RFI allows you to voice the specific research and educational uses for which you anticipate using the NAIRR, and challenges that you foresee. To improve the NAIRR for all researchers and to make your voice heard, submit your comments to this online submission form by 5:00 pm Eastern time on March 8th, 2024, or email ccc@cra.org to make suggestions for a CCC response to the RFI.