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Virginia Tech research team gets $20 million grant for cloud-based semiconductor lab
The U.S. National Science Foundation has awarded a team of Virginia Tech-based researchers $20 million for a project tied to the Department of Energy’s Genesis Mission.
Their mission: build an artificial intelligence-enabled cloud-based semiconductor laboratory, according to the university.
The lab would be part of the Genesis Mission Platform, which the Energy Department said in July will feature advanced AI models, software and high-performance computing resources that would comprise a nationwide network of AI-enabled automated laboratories accessible to scientists working with Genesis grants.
This news comes just after the university announced separate Genesis Mission grants to at least three Virginia Tech-based projects that will explore quantum data accuracy, weather pattern recognition and rare earth materials extraction.
Researchers developing the Virginia Tech Programmable Cloud Laboratory Node are among 20 teams nationwide to receive funding in what the National Science Foundation calls “a core … contribution to the U.S. government’s Genesis Mission, a national effort to harness AI for scientific discovery,” according to the university news release.
Virginia Tech’s PCL Node is meant to strengthen U.S. semiconductor innovation, manufacturing resilience and workforce development. All 20 teams’ nodes will be accessible for wider development purposes, said the project’s principal investigator, professor Rose Hu.
“The chance of this serving the larger population is great,” Hu, head of the Bradley Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, said in the news release. Her team expects the remote labs network to expand job opportunities, particularly in underserved rural communities.
She is collaborating with faculty from various departments: Wei Zhou, an associate professor in electrical and computer engineering and director of the university’s Micro-/Nanofabrication Cleanroom and Laboratory; Zhenyu “James” Kong, an industrial and systems engineering professor; Matthew Hull, a research professor and director of the Nanoscale Characterization and Fabrication Laboratory; and Alberto Cano, associate professor in computer science and associate vice president for advanced research computing.
Semiconductors, the miniscule building blocks of modern electronics, are time- and work-intensive to produce, but demand is high. The Virginia Tech PCL Node would employ AI-guided workflows that make production faster, repeatable and easy to predict, according to the news release.
Resources from the university’s Micro-/Nanofabrication Cleanroom and Laboratory, Nanoscale Characterization and Fabrication Laboratory and Advanced Research Computing will aid the process.
Project partners include other professors from across the university, along with higher education institutions in the commonwealth beyond, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, the National Institute of Standards and Technology, and such industries as NVIDIA and Amazon Web Services.
Court order restarts digital equity act funding
More than a year after President Donald Trump moved to cancel an internet access grants program he called “racist,” “unconstitutional” and a “woke handout,” a federal judge has reinstated the program.
The Biden-era Digital Equity Act can no longer include race and ethnicity considerations, U.S. District Judge John Bates ruled last month, but Trump did not have the authority to cancel the entire program, according to multiple published reports.
The Department of Commerce has committed to restarting the program and was preparing a new notice of funding opportunity, according to Broadband Breakfast.
Before May 9, 2025, Virginia stood to receive more than $18 million from the Digital Equity Act for programs ensuring internet access for all, along with the skills to navigate it. That night, the Trump administration sent a letter to Virginia’s Department of Housing and Community Development, canceling the program.
The $2.75 billion competitive grant program was in limbo, pending results of the National Digital Inclusion Alliance’s federal lawsuit arguing that the president and federal agencies lack authority to annul programs that Congress enacted and funded.
Addressing racial needs in access gaps is a “laudable goal,” Bates wrote, but he cited the Supreme Court’s 2023 ruling that race-based admissions systems at universities are unconstitutional.
The Commerce Department expected to take new applications in December.
Virginia Tech participates in healthcare-related federal and state grant awards
A Virginia Tech engineering professor has received a $460,260 federal grant for his research on AI in medical treatment for seniors.
Huaiyang Zhong, from the Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering, will use the money as he studies how machine learning and natural language processing can help improve understanding, assessment and risk prediction in rural senior citizens who need chronic pain care, according to a university spokeswoman.
U.S. Rep. Morgan Griffith, R-Salem, announced the grant last week from the Department of Health and Human Services, saying, “American health care stands to benefit from a transition to AI technologies.”
In a second piece of grant news, a group of researchers is testing a medical device designed to accelerate broken-bone healing and provide real-time assessment of its progress. They’ll do it in part via an $800,000 grant from the Virginia Biosciences Health Research Corporation, better known as Virginia Catalyst.
Baltimore-based business Sonogen Medical is working on the project with researchers from Virginia Tech, the University of Virginia and Old Dominion University on what a news release from Gov. Abigail Spanberger’s office described as the first in-human testing of an artificial intelligence-/machine learning-enabled therapeutic and diagnostic ultrasonic bone fracture healing device.
The Virginia Catalyst award was one of three, totaling $2.4 million, to support innovation within Virginia’s biomedical institutions as they collaborate with industries.
