Chris Ritter was on vacation in Nevada, 30 minutes from Las Vegas, hiking Red Rock Canyon by day and returning to a resort with pools in the evening, when he took a call about the end of science as we know it.
Or, more precisely, its acceleration.
Ritter is the division director for scientific computing and artificial intelligence at Idaho National Laboratory, one of 17 national labs that will soon be yoked together in what the Trump administration has named the Genesis Mission.
"There is major excitement," he said of the mood at INL. "A major level of excitement and push to deliver the mission and work together." He paused. "We're ready to seize the moment."
The moment arrived on Nov. 24, when President Trump signed an executive order launching what Energy Secretary Chris Wright called a national effort "comparable in urgency and ambition to the Manhattan Project."
The Genesis Mission aims to double American research-and-development productivity within a decade by building an integrated platform connecting supercomputers, AI systems and quantum technologies with the accumulated scientific data of the federal government — data that commercial models like ChatGPT cannot access.
Under Secretary for Science Darío Gil will lead the initiative, coordinating roughly 40,000 DOE scientists, engineers and technicians across all 17 national laboratories.
The executive order identifies three core mission areas: American energy dominance, discovery science, and national security.
For Wyoming, the emphasis on energy development will be powered by DOE, the University of Wyoming, the companies pursuing energy development and INL providing expert guidance with nuclear.
INL has already announced strategic partnerships to accelerate nuclear development using AI. A collaboration with Amazon Web Services uses cloud infrastructure and foundation models to build nuclear-energy AI models at scale.
A Microsoft partnership focuses on streamlining permitting and licensing applications using Azure cloud computing.
"Imagine being able to use this to aid you along the process to build the design documentation, development documentation, and the licensing packages," Ritter said. "A human will still review all these things, but the idea is to have computational tools help you along the way."
The lab has also announced a partnership with Atomic Alchemy to build benchmarks — a way to assess which AI models perform better when processing nuclear information. It is the first comprehensive suite for large language models specifically focused on the nuclear domain.
Asked whether INL is working with nuclear companies doing business in Wyoming — Terrapower, BWX Technologies, Radiant — Ritter said, "Genesis is kind of in its early days, so we don't have anything yet to announce as far as nuclear partnerships. But I can say that INL is actively working with pretty much every company you could possibly think of."
Trump’s Genesis Mission will link national labs, artificial intelligence and quantum tech to speed up scientific breakthroughs, especially in energy. University of Wyoming and the Idaho National Lab hope to boost nuclear innovation, research, and jobs. (Courtesy Photo) 
Scientists from the University of Wyoming will work closely with the Genesis Mission, President Donald Trump's new sweeping artificial intelligence initiative to turbocharge scientific breakthroughs. (Courtesy Photo) 
Trump’s Genesis Mission will link national labs, artificial intelligence and quantum tech to speed up scientific breakthroughs, especially in energy. University of Wyoming and the Idaho National Lab hope to boost nuclear innovation, research, and jobs. (Courtesy Photo) 
Two point people for the recently announced Genesis Mission: Chris Ritter, left, with the Idaho National Lab and Jeff Hamerlinck with the University of Wyoming.
Laramie’s Part
Jeff Hamerlinck is the associate director and senior research scientist at the University of Wyoming's School of Computing. He sees the Genesis Mission as validation of investments the university has been making for years.
"From my understanding, what the executive order lays out is really a commitment for a pretty large-scale new investment in bringing artificial intelligence and scientific computation into really all of the different ways that we conduct research in the country," Hamerlinck said. "It's designed to be built around the strengths of the national labs, but then also a big part of that is doing this in partnership with both industry and academia."
In August 2024, UW secured a three-year, $3.9 million award from the National Science Foundation to acquire a specialized high-performance computing testbed: twenty-four nodes of NVIDIA Grace Hopper Superchips with four hundred terabytes of data storage.
The technology was not previously available anywhere in the Rocky Mountain region.
The university will control 75 percent of the system's capacity, with Colorado State University receiving 15 percent and the Rocky Mountain Advanced Computing Consortium — a group of 33 institutions — receiving 10 percent.
"This has already been changing with research becoming more computational," Hamerlinck said. "We've tried to prepare for that here at UW. We've already been making some investments in developing our own in-house infrastructure to support AI-driven research. Some of that has been supported by the state legislature, as well as been matched with resources from industry."
Summer Wasson demonstrates where the cold water goes to keep the Derecho supercomputer cool at the NCAR Wyoming Supercomputing Center. (Matt Idler for Cowboy State Daily) 
The Cheyenne supercomputer was in service for seven years, but is now being dismantled to move after it sold at auction to a mystery buyer for $480,000. The set-up still packs a punch with speeds at 5.34 teraflopw, or about 5.3 quadrillion calculations per second. (Matt Idler for Cowboy State Daily)
Building Capacity
The changes at UW extend beyond hardware. The university is transforming its faculty-hiring criteria, seeking researchers with AI and computational expertise, and adding research staff to support faculty and students.
UW maintains existing relationships with Idaho National Laboratory, Argonne National Laboratory, and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory.
"For a university our size, I feel like we're really well positioned to be able to benefit from this new investment at the federal level," Hamerlinck said.
For those unfamiliar with AI-driven research, Hamerlinck offered a practical example.
"One way this might work is that there's companies that are doing prospecting for critical minerals," he said. "A platform like this would enable people in that industry to access these different data sets and the AI models that have been built off of those data sets to help them in exploration for these kinds of resources."
Beyond research, Hamerlinck sees economic benefits for businesses across Wyoming.
"I think it's going to create opportunities for university researchers to have more support for being able to commercialize their research," he said. "So that supports economic development in the state. I think it's also going to create opportunities for our students, for experiential learning opportunities through fellowships and internships and things like that."
According to the executive order, within 270 days, the Secretary of Energy must demonstrate an initial operating capability for at least one national science and technology challenge.
The old model of scientific collaboration, Ritter explained, involved researchers working independently and sharing results at conferences or through publications.
"The new way, the way that Genesis will enable this single integrated platform," he said. "So what I work on today at Idaho National Laboratory would be compatible with what someone at Argonne National Laboratory or Oak Ridge National Laboratory or NREL, which is in Colorado nearby — would be compatible to talk to someone else's model."
He added, "The combination of Wyoming's operational advanced reactor demonstration project (in Kemmerer), uranium reserves in the country, experienced energy workforce, and then of course University of Wyoming R&D and education — I think it positions the state as a key enabler for the Genesis Mission technologies.”
David Madison can be reached at david@cowboystatedaily.com.
