About

The Scientific Artificial Intelligence (SAI, pronounced "psi") Initiative strengthens Notre Dame's leadership in integrating experimental science, physics-based modeling, and artificial intelligence (AI) methodologies. At the intersection of traditional scientific disciplines and artificial intelligence, SAI cultivates a distinctive research community where domain experts across the College of Engineering and College of Science pioneer approaches that amplify and accelerate scientific discovery.

SAI emphasizes disciplinary leadership, positioning scientists and engineers as equal partners in shaping AI's role in their fields. Through strategic partnerships and innovative training programs, SAI is cultivating a new generation of scientific leaders who will shape how AI transforms the future.

Strategic Vision

SAI is premised on the understanding that AI fundamentally alters the frontier of predictability in science and engineering, transforming subfields that were previously observational or heuristic into disciplines driven by rigorous data analysis and high-fidelity modeling. The initiative recognizes and capitalizes on this convergence of established physics-based modeling with emerging data-driven methodologies and the integration of AI into physical research spaces.

Bridging Communities

SAI serves two distinct but complementary research communities essential to the university's profile and unites them under a common identity.

The first consists of Notre Dame's high density of physics-based modeling faculty—fluid dynamics modelers, chemical, materials, and biophysical modelers, roboticists, and researchers in applied mathematics and computer engineering—who work at the interface of disciplinary specializations. These computational faculty have been among the earliest integrators of AI within their respective fields but have lacked a unified center to leverage their commonalities and pursue broader funding opportunities enabled by their collective interdisciplinary strength.

The second consists of experimental researchers in domains where AI is fundamentally reshaping what can be measured, predicted, and asked—fields such as earth science, cellular biology, and material science where the scale and heterogeneity of data have historically outpaced the capacity of analytical theory. In these disciplines, AI offers more than incremental improvement by changing how data is collected, how dispersed knowledge is consolidated, and which questions become tractable. Although these researchers are natural collaborators with the physics-based modelers, direct partnership has often been limited by the disparate nature of their methodological needs.

SAI bridges this divide, creating a community that realizes the opportunities AI creates for prediction and automation across both groups. The initiative emphasizes disciplinary leadership, positioning scientists and engineers as equal partners in shaping AI's role in their fields—a distinction captured by the name "Scientific AI" rather than "AI for Science."

Core Values

• Scientific Excellence — Supporting and maintaining the highest standards of rigor in research, education, and scholarly output.

• Service to the University's Catholic Mission — Pursuing research that contributes to human flourishing and reflects the ethical commitments of the university.

• Developing Talent and Leadership at All Levels — Fostering the next generation of scientific leaders through mentorship, training, and progressive responsibility.

• Open Sharing — Promoting the sharing of data, tools, workflows, and computational or experimental resources across the Center and the broader community.

• Convergent Collaboration — Merging the skills and expertise of different areas through communities of practice that cross disciplinary boundaries.

• Mutual Learning — Cultivating a culture in which domain experts and AI researchers learn from each other as equal partners.

A Collaborative Approach

The SAI Initiative operates within the Data, AI, and Computing Initiative as a collaborative effort between the College of Engineering, the College of Science, Notre Dame Research, and the Office of the Provost.

Click Here to Request to Join the SAI-Initiative Google Group.