In 2020, Congress passed the National Artificial Intelligence Initiative Act (NAIIA) to strengthen Artificial Intelligence (AI) advances and innovations across multiple sectors by providing investments to National AI Research Institutes under the National Artificial Intelligence Initiative Office (NAIIO). The NAIIA requires the NAIIO to submit NAIIA-related budget and program information to Congress annually as part of the president's budget request.
In November of 2022, NAIIO and the Networking and Information Technology Research and Development Program (NITRD) published its annual "Supplement to the President's Budget." The report consists of a technical summary of all NITRD budget investments and planned activities and illustrates both enacted and proposed investments by federal agencies for AI Research Institutes under the NAIIO. Notably, the total budget proposal expanded from $7.8 billion in 2022, to $9.6 billion in 2023—an increase of approximately 23.1 percent for all federal agencies' NITRD-related R&D.
Several of the agencies attribute the total upsurge in budget to an increase in AI funding: the Department of Defense (DoD) allocates its $38.2 million increase to AI, the Department of Energy (DOE) requests an additional $26.2 million for AI crosscut and foundational AI research, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) plans to apportion part of its $33.3 million increase to AI portfolio expansion and research, and the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) intends to use its $19.2 million increase to fund a new National AI Institute and trustworthy AI work.
The report also identifies numerous AI R&D strategic priorities for the upcoming fiscal year and beyond, with the stated goal to promote "U.S. leadership and global competitiveness in AI R&D and its applications." These priorities include making long-term investments in AI research, developing effective methods for human-AI collaboration, understanding both the implications of AI and the national AI R&D workforce needs, and continuing to accelerate advances in AI. In addition, the report identifies certain priorities to control and regulate AI development, including to measure and evaluate AI technologies through standards and benchmarks, to develop shared public datasets and environments for AI training and testing, and to ensure the safety and security of AI systems.
This post is a part of a series on trends in the artificial intelligence space for 2023, authored by MoFo lawyers.
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