Deputy Secretary James Danley says DOE’s Genesis mission will ‘accelerate scientific discovery’ with AI

Deputy Secretary James Danley urged attendees at the Department of Energy’s Genesis event to view the initiative as a practical effort to speed scientific discovery and benefit the economy. "It has two great promises. It is going to accelerate technological and scientific discovery and innovation, and it's going to improve human prosperity and well-being," Danley said, framing the program as an applied mission rather than an abstract policy discussion.

Danley credited Undersecretary Gill for structuring Genesis around specific demonstrations and challenges that invited a broad response from universities, national labs, and industry. He said the approach is designed to make research-and-development dollars “more valuable” by increasing the pace at which results are achieved. He cited rapid historical advances — from early computing to modern consumer devices and genome sequencing — to underline the potential speed of scientific change with the right tools.

Danley also noted the program’s collaborative scope: participants include universities, industry, national laboratories, foreign partners, and DOE offices such as the Office of Commercialization. He thanked President Trump, Secretary Wright, and Undersecretary Gill for the executive-order charge that launched the effort and singled out Emma Quigg, chief of staff to the undersecretary for science, as the event coordinator.

The deputy secretary closed by asking attendees to view Genesis as a national-scale mission built on American ingenuity, saying he looked forward to seeing what the initiative would produce. The event then returned to the program chair for a final goodbye.