Funder: Simons Foundation
Due Dates: December 1, 2026, at 12 p.m. Eastern time (Full application)
Funding Amounts: $6 million total over two years for six to 12 awards; no individual award maximum
Summary: Supports mathematics and basic science research using foundational machine learning models and Empire AI’s multinode GPU clusters.
Key Information: Lead PIs must hold tenure-track or tenured faculty positions at one of nine eligible Empire AI consortium institutions.
Description
The Simons Foundation supports ambitious two-year research programs that draw on Empire AI’s advanced computational power to address fundamental problems in mathematics and basic science. Eligible fields are computational astrophysics and physics, computational biology, mathematics, neuroscience and computational physical chemistry, including work at their intersections. Projects must rely on developing and using foundational machine learning models and must use Empire AI’s multinode GPU clusters.
Representative research areas include computational biophysics, ecology and evolution, plant biology, optimal transport, multiscale physics, fluid dynamics and numerical general relativity. Proposals focused on data curation or dataset creation may be considered exceptionally, provided the researchers use the resulting data to solve scientific problems within the same project.
