University of Utah researchers will work with lead institution UC San Diego and others to expand a national platform connecting data, computing and AI resources to empower nationwide researchers and educators.
August 19, 2026
Read the original announcement from University of California San Diego.
The University of Utah Scientific Computing and Imaging (SCI) Institute is part of a team of five universities awarded a five-year, $24.5 million agreement to build out the National Data Platform (NDP), a federated, AI-ready national data ecosystem that makes it easier to discover, access and analyze data—regardless of where it is stored.
Under the new award from the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF), researchers will develop NDP—first funded as a pilot in 2023—into a national-scale ecosystem that builds on existing cyberinfrastructure to accelerate AI-integrated discovery and education. The University of California San Diego will lead the project in partnership with researchers from SCI, the University of Massachusetts Amherst, the Texas Advanced Computing Center at the University of Texas at Austin and the University of Washington’s eScience Institute.
The award is one of two Category I projects announced on July 22 under NSF’s new Integrated Data Systems and Services program, part of an $83 million, agency-wide investment in national data infrastructure designed to accelerate AI-driven scientific discovery and strengthen U.S. research competitiveness in alignment with the U.S. government’s Genesis Mission.
“America’s leadership in artificial intelligence depends not only on advanced computing resources but also on the data infrastructure that enables researchers to discover, access, share and analyze scientific data at scale,” said Brian Stone, performing the duties of the NSF director, in NSF’s announcement of the awards. “These investments provide foundational capabilities that empower scientists and engineers to drive transformative AI-enabled discovery, accelerate innovation and strengthen national competitiveness.”
Manish Parashar—NDP co–principal investigator, chief AI officer for the University of Utah and executive director of SCI—said the U is thrilled to partner with NSF, UC San Diego and the broader team on the next phase of NDP.
“AI promises to transform scientific discovery, but that promise depends entirely on access to high-quality data,” Parashar said. “Utah is helping build the scalable backbone of this national ecosystem—creating a seamless, turnkey cyberinfrastructure where researchers can find and access the exact data and models they need, along with the training to put them to work immediately.”
NDP, Parashar added, further enables Utah’s globally competitive AI ecosystem and complements state investments, including the Pro-Human AI Initiative, Redtail AI factory and the Utah Health AI Vault, which will update the widely used Utah Population Database to make it compatible with innovations in data science and AI.
NDP principal investigator Ilkay Altintas, chief data science officer at San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC), will lead the nationwide team of collaborators overseeing cyberinfrastructure, platform development, user support and partnerships. The platform, she said, provides “an open ecosystem where researchers spend less time managing data and more time making scientific discoveries and breakthrough innovations with AI.”
“This award recognizes not only the importance of the platform, but also the collaborative community and users that have helped shape it into a national resource, removing the barriers between scientific innovation and America’s data that enables it,” Altintas added.
About the Project
The team will build on the existing NDP pilot, expanding it in collaboration with current NSF and local investments such as:
- National Research Platform, a distributed research computing infrastructure;
- Tapis, an open-source platform for managing scientific computing and data;
- CloudBank, a connector to commercial cloud resources for researchers and educators;
- Redtail AI factory, Utah’s statewide AI supercomputer; and
- Massachusetts Green High Performance Computing Center, an intercollegiate high-performance computing facility in Massachusetts.
NDP will connect a wide range of data types, from images and sensor streams to large-scale simulation outputs, with services and computing resources optimized for AI-driven analysis.
The platform is organized as a layered, federated microservices architecture built on open standards, shared operational principles and community governance. The project is organized into five components: the Compute Fabric, which provides federated connector-node resources and integrates existing cyberinfrastructure systems and services; the Federation Fabric, which unifies service deployment, monitoring and security; the Innovation Factory, which enables users to build, test and deploy services; the Service Gallery, a catalog of ready-to-use data and AI services; and the Portal, which delivers an integrated, user-centric experience for running, sharing and reusing data and services across the ecosystem.
The University of Utah team will initially focus on infrastructure and deployment, said Saleem Alharir, a SCI senior software developer and part-time Ph.D. student who has worked on NDP since its start. “We’ll shape how these components—developed across five universities—interact together, as one system,” Alharir said. “This integrated system will expand the capabilities launched in the pilot phase.”
To accomplish this, the U is expanding its NDP team. In addition to Parashar and Alharir, the group includes a mix of experts from SCI and its Center For High Performance Computing: Senior Director for Research Computing and Data Bill Miller, Director of Research and Science Penny Atkins, computing faculty member Rohan Basu Roy, Research Scientist Jess Tate, IT Associate Director Chad Lake, and developers Yutian Qin, Pratik Kharade, Paul Fischer and Sam Liston.
SCI will also hire several more team members, including a postdoctoral researcher, a Ph.D. student in AI research and additional developers. “This will help us build something robust and impactful at a national scale,” Alharir said.
Looking Ahead
Over the next five years, NDP will continue expanding the community of researchers, educators and institutions connected through the platform while growing the data resources, AI services and collaborative tools within a common, AI-ready environment for discovering, sharing and building on scientific data.
As a Category I awardee, NDP represents a significant step toward a more connected national research ecosystem—one where scientists across disciplines can more easily access the data, computing resources and AI capabilities needed to accelerate discovery and address complex challenges.
“By uniting the expertise of SDSC, the University of Utah, the University of Massachusetts Amherst, TACC and UW with NSF’s broader investments in cyberinfrastructure and the National Artificial Intelligence Research Resource, we are excited to lead NDP’s efforts to ensure that the benefits of AI-driven discovery are accessible to the full breadth of the U.S. research community,” said SDSC Director Frank Wuerthwein.