Following on from a presidential decree issued in September, the scientific funding agency is urging its researchers to replace ‘AI’ with ‘SI’, going beyond what the decree requires.
During a webinar of the National Science Foundation's Directorate of Mathematical and Physical Sciences on October 8, his deputy Junping Wang indicated that program managers could revise the grant documents to replace "AI" with "SI", for Super Intelligence. This instruction stems from a White House decree published in September 2026, which imposes this new vocabulary.
NSF, however, goes further than the executive order itself: NIST's recommendations specify that the text does not require changes to regulations, contracts or grants already issued. The same official added that the agency's internal AI tools can be used to summarize the applications filed, but not to make funding recommendations.
The announcement comes the same week as the "Science: A New Golden Age" summit, where the administration presented $6 billion in science initiatives, including a $100 million accelerated doctoral fellowship supported by the Department of Energy and a $1.8 billion virtual biology program.
Read the full article on the original source
Go to the source →