The Frontier Development Lab (FDL) is a public-private partnership between NASA, the US Department of Energy, and the SETI Institute, supported by AI/ML technology leaders and subject matter experts from the private sector, including Google Cloud, NVIDIA, Lockheed Martin, Intel, the Luxembourg Space Agency, and Mayo Clinic.
FDL brings together early-career PhD’s and postdoctoral researchers from diverse scientific fields and pairs them with their counterparts in computer science to run an applied AI/ML research accelerator capable of answering some of humanity’s most critical research challenges in the areas of extreme weather modeling, disaster response and recovery, planetary defense, astronaut health, Heliophysics, Earth Science, astrobiology, and planetary science.
FDL Leadership
FDL at the SETI Institute
The SETI Institute hosts FDL at its headquarters in Mountain View, California, where research teams have access to extraordinary supercomputer and cloud-based resources provided by Google Cloud and NVIDIA. The program encourages rapid iteration and prototyping to create outputs addressing defined real-world challenge questions. Research teams share their results via live public showcases, published program reports, peer-reviewed papers, and high-profile conference presentations.