Mission

The mission of the NSF-Simons AI Institute for the Sky (SkAI Institute) is to unleash the discovery potential of revolutionary sky surveys and solve fundamental and emerging multiscale problems at the forefront of astrophysics and foundational AI. This mission is being achieved through the following values:

• Innovation: Leveraging and advancing AI capabilities to harness and advance astronomy data, simulations, and experiments.
• Collaboration: Fostering interdisciplinary teams to support collaboration across the SkAI Network and foster emerging leaders in research, teaching, and art.
• Broadening participation: Broadening participation in various fields represented in the Institute through education and mentoring programs.
• Sustainability: Aims to contribute to the long-term impact on astronomy, AI, and other communities by cultivating open-source community software, datasets, and educational training materials and, ultimately, by fostering emerging talent for the future workforce.

Vision

The SkAI Institute brings together 25 partner organizations. We serve as a cross-disciplinary nexus that is synergistically accelerating Astro-AI research and helping educate the future Astro-AI workforce. Centrally located in Chicago and the Midwest, with research and education bridges to Georgia, Hawaii, and Alaska, SkAI brings together astrophysicists, foundational AI researchers, educators, AI ethicists, software engineers, and artists to:

• Confront the challenges posed by transformative multiwavelength and multimessenger surveys;
• Develop innovative, trustworthy AI tools for the research community; and
• Seed and nurture a new generation of interdisciplinary leaders in science and engineering to ethically apply and extend AI within and beyond academia.

The SkAI Institute is one of the National Artificial Intelligence Research Institutes funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation and Simons Foundation.
Information on National AI Institutes is available at aiinstitutes.org.