AI and Quantum Among Top White House R&D Priorities for FY2027

The White House published a memo this week detailing its priorities for federally funded research in fiscal year 2027.

The memo, published Tuesday, was authored by Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought and Office of Science and Technology Policy Director Michael Kratsios. It criticizes years of “unfocused federal investments weighed down by woke ideology and diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives” and aims to realign the federal R&D portfolio to “serve its core purposes: driving economic growth and high-wage employment for all Americans, promoting high quality of life, and ensuring U.S. leadership in critical sectors of the economy.”

Congress, not the White House, ultimately sets budgets for federal R&D, but the memo signals the Trump administration’s funding priorities.

These priorities include:

• Ensuring American leadership in critical and emerging technologies through R&D related to artificial intelligence, quantum science, semiconductors, advanced communications networks, future computing technologies, and advanced manufacturing.
• Unleashing American “energy dominance” by encouraging agencies to prioritize “affordable, reliable and secure energy technologies.”
• Strengthening American national and economic security by, for example, advancing U.S. military capabilities, investing in cybersecurity capabilities, and implementing President Donald Trump’s vision for a “Golden Dome” missile defense shield.
• Safeguarding American health and biotechnology through, for example, R&D focused on pressing health challenges, boosting biosafety, and building domestic biomanufacturing capabilities.
• Assuring continued American leadership in space through, for example, crewed missions to the Moon and Mars, and basic and applied R&D into areas such as novel sensing modalities and radiation belt remediation.

The memo appears to reflect the Trump administration’s hard turn against certain STEM education programs and diversity initiatives. An earlier memo published during Trump’s first term overtly called for agencies to prioritize “activities that advance innovation in STEM education and increase diversity, equity, and inclusion in STEM.” This objective is ridiculed in the latest memo, and the Trump administration has pursued an aggressive campaign to eliminate grants, programs, and policies that have even passing connections to DEI. General principles, such as growing the American science and technology workforce, encouraging partnerships with industry, and strengthening national security, remain.

As part of its critical and emerging technology goals, the memo encourages federal investment in “novel AI paradigms and computing architectures” to realize AI applications such as accelerated scientific discovery, nuclear fission and fusion, quantum energy science, advanced space analytics, and remote sensing and navigation. The memo also emphasizes enhancing methodologies for AI evaluation and creating structured scientific datasets for AI model training.

On quantum science, the memo recommends agencies develop consortia to support R&D efforts, invest in testbeds and other critical infrastructure, and boost efforts to manufacture next-generation quantum devices, adding that “funding for related basic and applied materials research and mathematical and physical sciences should also be prioritized.”

Achieving American “energy dominance” has been a key talking point of the Trump administration, with OSTP encouraging federal agencies to prioritize R&D investments related to fossil fuels, advanced nuclear fission and fusion, geothermal and hydropower energy, as well as support the development of advanced reactors, small modular reactors, fusion energy demonstrators, and processes for nuclear fuel recycling and reprocessing.

“Federally funded energy R&D should reflect an increased reliance on the private sector to fund later-stage R&D and commercialization of energy production, storage, and consumption technologies, while also supporting user facilities that can improve multisector collaboration,” the OSTP memo says.

Though the Trump administration has cut federal support for climate research by, for example, terminating National Science Foundation grants, the OSTP memo highlights the importance of research focused on polar regions, urging agencies to “prioritize research and associated research infrastructure investments that enhance America’s ability to observe, understand, and predict the physical, biological, geologic, and socioeconomic processes and interacting systems of the Arctic to protect and advance American interests and ensure prosperity of America’s Arctic residents.” The memo also urges agencies to “maintain, and where feasible, strengthen Antarctic research infrastructure” — a goal that seems to be at odds with the Trump administration’s decision to defund the National Science Foundation’s construction budget earlier this year.