A large multi-institutional collaboration, led by Northwestern University, has received a $20 million grant to develop and apply new artificial intelligence (AI) tools to astrophysics research and deep space exploration.

Jointly funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the Simons Foundation, the highly competitive grant will establish the NSF-Simons AI Institute for the Sky (SkAI, pronounced “sky”). SkAI is one of two National AI Research Institutes in Astronomy announced Wednesday. Northwestern astrophysicist Vicky Kalogera is principal investigator of the grant and will serve as the director of SkAI. Northwestern AI expert Aggelos Katsaggelos is a co-principal investigator of the grant.

The new institute will unite multidisciplinary researchers to develop innovative, trustworthy AI tools for astronomy, which will be used to pursue breakthrough discoveries by analyzing large astronomy datasets, transform physics-based simulations and more. With unprecedentedly large sky surveys poised to launch, including from the Vera C. Rubin Observatory in Chile, astronomers will require smarter, more efficient tools to accelerate the mining and interpretation of increasingly large datasets. SkAI will fulfill a crucial role in developing and refining these tools.

“I am thrilled to receive this opportunity to work with our amazing cross-disciplinary, multi-institutional team, so we can accelerate the data-driven revolution that wide and deep sky surveys will bring to the field of astronomy,” Kalogera said. “We will transform our astrophysical understanding across an enormous range of scales — from stars and the transients they produce to the evolving galaxies they live in, the black holes they form, and the dark sector of the universe and its cosmological origins.”

Kalogera is the Daniel I. Linzer Distinguished Professor of Physics and Astronomy in the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences and director of Northwestern’s Center for Interdisciplinary Exploration and Research in Astrophysics (CIERA). Katsaggelos is the Joseph Cummings Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the McCormick School of Engineering, co-director of the Center for Scientific Studies in the Arts, and has courtesy appointments in computer science and radiology. 

“One of Northwestern’s stated priorities is to harness the power of data analytics and artificial intelligence, so I couldn’t be more excited about a partnership so in line with our vision,” Northwestern Provost Kathleen Hagerty said. “Similarly, interdisciplinary innovation is core to the Northwestern ethos. With potential to make a positive impact on our students and faculty, our local community and the global scientific community, this collaboration checks all the boxes.”

Envelope-pushing community

Within Northwestern, the SkAI Institute includes 14 faculty members from across Weinberg College and Northwestern Engineering.

“SkAI represents a unique and exciting opportunity for the AI community at Northwestern and its partnering institutions to push the envelope and achieve foundational AI breakthroughs in several scientific areas, such as generative models, astrophysics-informed, and interpretable architectures, and uncertainty quantification,” Katsaggelos said. “Such major advances require the synergies generated by the structure of a multidisciplinary institute. As the first National AI Research Institute at Northwestern, we will lead a transformation that brings Northwestern to the forefront of research and technology. This is an exciting time for AI researchers at Northwestern.”

Along with Katsaggelos, Northwestern Engineering faculty involved include:

• Emma Alexander, assistant professor of computer science
• Jessica Hullman, Ginni Rometty Professor of Computer Science
• Han Liu, Orrington Lunt Professor of Computer Science
• Aravindan Vijayaraghavan, associate professor of computer science
• Ermin Wei, associate professor of electrical and computer engineering and industrial engineering and management sciences

 Centrally located in Illinois, SkAI will unite 83 team members from across 25 partner organizations. The SkAI Institute will serve as an inclusive, cross-disciplinary nexus that will accelerate AI-astronomy research and help educate a diverse workforce.

“Illinois is already an international hub of research and technology, and our state is ideally positioned for greater investment, innovation and job creation,” US Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) said. “I’m pleased to see NSF investing in our state with this new AI Institute for the Sky, helping deepen the scientific research and understanding of astronomy and astrophysics. Our state is making it clear that we are ready to compete and have the innovation and talent right here to bring our state, nation and world into the future.”

“Artificial intelligence is changing the way we approach our world,” US Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) said. “AI for the Sky: The SkAI Institute allows Illinois to lead the exploration of this technology’s possibilities and its use in astrophysics. Illinois’ world-class research universities have long worked alongside the NSF at the cutting edge of next generation technologies. Thanks to collaborations like SkAI, our state will continue to lead the way in the industries of the future.”

Northwestern’s core partners are the University of Chicago, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and National Center for Supercomputing Applications, with other partners from Argonne National Laboratory, Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, University of Illinois Chicago, the Adler Planetarium, and University of Wisconsin-Madison, as well as several undergraduate education and research institutions, and industry and art organizations. The team comprises researchers from diverse backgrounds, including experts in astrophysics, foundational AI, education, ethics, software engineering, and the arts.

“The SkAI research hub builds on Northwestern’s multidisciplinary strengths to tackle some of the most profound questions in astrophysics,” said Eric Perreault, Northwestern’s vice president for research. “Led by professors Kalogera and Katsaggelos, the initiative unites world-class expertise to accelerate discoveries and position Northwestern as a leader in AI-driven research. The hub's impact is amplified by key regional partners like the University of Chicago and University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and collaborators such as University of Illinois Chicago, Adler Planetarium, Argonne National Laboratory, Fermilab, and City Colleges of Chicago. Northwestern's commitment to interdisciplinary and inter-institutional collaboration ensures this initiative will thrive, driving groundbreaking discoveries and reinforcing the region's research excellence.”

Data-driven discoveries

Over the course of the next decade, the Vera C. Rubin Observatory will launch the Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST). The LSST will generate the widest, deepest images of the southern sky and create the first-ever deep, multicolor movie, showing how the sky changes over time. The project will generate dozens of terabytes of data per night, potentially holding answers to the universe’s most elusive secrets, including the nature of dark matter and dark energy, the formation of galaxies, and the creation of elements by stars and their explosions.

While surveys like the LSST promise transformational advances in astrophysics and cosmology, they also require researchers to process an unprecedented amount of astrophysical information. New AI tools will be crucial to meeting this extraordinary challenge. To help the effort, the SkAI Institute will develop and deliver innovations at the intersection of astronomy and AI that transform the speed and reliability of simulations and optimize the design of instruments and surveys.

"The massive amount of data that will be gathered in the coming years by the Vera C. Rubin Observatory and other large-scale astronomical projects is simply too vast and rich to be fully explored with existing methods," said Sethuraman Panchanathan, director of the NSF. "With reliable and trustworthy AI in their toolbox, everyone from students to senior researchers will have exciting new ways to gain valuable insights leading to amazing discoveries that might otherwise remain hidden in the data."

Establishing an inclusive, diverse workforce

Scientific discovery and data processing are not the SkAI Institute’s only goals. All the AI tools developed within the institute will be open source, for the whole community to use for research in astronomy and beyond. The new institute also will empower the entire astronomy community to use cutting-edge AI tools to address fast-evolving challenges and growing/nurturing an ethically aware and diverse generation of interdisciplinary leaders.

To help establish an inclusive culture and grow a larger, diverse STEM workforce, the SkAI team includes the SkAI Satellite Network, a set of 16 regional and national college partners that include 13 minority-serving institutions and two EPSCoR (Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research) institutions. An intentional effort to increase representation in the AI and astronomy fields, this work through SkAI Satellite Network will lower barriers to access for high school and college students by engaging both faculty and students from the Network in long-term mentoring and working partnerships to foster a research and learning culture where all members can thrive.

“With open-source codes and training workshops, we will focus on engaging with communities and meeting their needs in research and education as well as career development in this exciting astro-AI era,” Kalogera said.

Established in 2020, the National AI Research Institutes represent the U.S. government’s cornerstone commitment to fostering long-term, fundamental research in AI. The other National AI Research Institute in Astronomy is the NSF-Simons CosmicAI Institute, led by the University of Texas at Austin.