Research facilities in advanced manufacturing, materials science, energy, medicine, and other fields generated vast, heterogeneous, and often sensitive data. Much of this data remained close to the instruments and facilities where it was produced. At the same time, scientific discovery increasingly depended on connecting data, computing resources, artificial intelligence, and expertise across institutions.
The NSDF Summit on Federated Autonomous Science brought together leaders from academia, industry, national laboratories, research facilities, and cyberinfrastructure organizations to examine how federated data architectures and autonomous AI could support collaborative science while respecting security, data sovereignty, privacy, and regulatory requirements.
The Summit was a working meeting. Participants compared requirements across scientific domains, identified common technical and organizational barriers, and defined opportunities for shared infrastructure and collaborative pilot projects.