A Rice University-led autonomous-laboratory initiative received $19.9 million for AI, robotics, and cloud-based electronic-materials research.

Rice University received a $19.9 million award from the U.S. National Science Foundation for a national autonomous-laboratory initiative. SUNY Polytechnic Institute is participating as a project partner.

The initiative will combine artificial intelligence, robotics, and cloud-based laboratories. Its research objective is to accelerate the discovery and manufacturing of next-generation electronic materials.

The award amount applies to the Rice-led initiative rather than solely to SUNY Polytechnic Institute. The supplied announcement did not provide the project’s duration, institutional funding allocation, computing budget, cloud provider, or specific robotic and AI systems.