Exclusive: Science and tech agency cuts spark industry pushback

Driving the news: Tech industry and advocacy groups sent a letter to Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick on Monday warning that agency cuts could hobble America's global leadership in AI.

• The letter notes that President Trump was responsible for starting AI work at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) during his first term.

What they're saying: Groups in the letter, shared exclusively with Axios, pointed to NIST's work developing standards, fostering public-private collaboration and harmonizing international norms.

• "We caution that downsizing NIST or eliminating these initiatives will have ramifications for the ability of the American AI industry to continue to lead globally," the groups wrote.
• "A reshaped approach — one that aligns NIST's world-leading expertise in standards and R&D with security and economic imperatives — will ensure that America continues to lead in AI and other emerging technologies."

State of play: The Software and Information Industry Association, TechNet, Americans for Responsible Innovation (ARI) and the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation's Center for Data Innovation were among the signatories.

• The pressure is piling on as ARI sent a separate letter last week to Lutnick and White House AI czar David Sacks expressing support for NIST, the National AI Research Resource and the AI Safety Institute.

Catch up quick: 73 probationary staff at NIST were fired last week — and it's not the only science and tech agency whose employees and funding are on the chopping block.

• The National Science Foundation (NSF) terminated 170 employees at the agency last month. Many of the fired workers were experts in AI and computer science tasked with directing taxpayer dollars toward the most promising studies that could advance the technology and its applications.
• About half were reinstated last week after a federal judge told the Office of Personnel Management to rescind its directive to agencies to fire probationary employees.

But agencies are due to submit plans to the White House by the end of this week outlining employee layoffs and positions that could be eliminated.

• At the same time, the NSF, which spends most of its budget funding research at universities and other institutions and was already hit with a budget cut last year, could reportedly see its funding further slashed.

The other side: The Trump administration has said its cutbacks — many made by Elon Musk's "Department of Government Efficiency" unit — are aimed at waste and inefficiency and are necessary for tackling the nation's debt.

Between the lines: The cuts affect scientific research across the board and aren't unique to computer science. But that field is at the forefront of the geopolitical competition to dominate the development of artificial intelligence and other technologies.

• The U.S. is home to top tier industry labs that conduct a lot of in-house computer science research, but they're generally looking for short-term impact.

• NSF, by contrast, funds early-stage, high-risk research or studies in areas industry doesn't have incentive to support but later applies.

Case in point: In the 1990s, NSF funded research on reinforcement learning — the AI approach that powers today's chatbots.

• "If you become very short-sighted and are saying industry can do short-term research, ignoring the long-term impact, at some point you will lose. That is precisely where we will head if we cut the funding," one computer science professor at a U.S. university told Axios.

Research dollars matter not just for their payoff in results but for the support they provide to the key asset in any scientific "race": talent.

• "The pipeline that gets young talent into big tech and startups is in many cases coming from NSF funding grants. It's enabling a whole host of computing talent to eventually staff American tech companies," a current NSF employee said.
• STEM and AI talent is already scarce in the U.S., and the cuts risk exacerbating the problem, they added.

Zoom in: Some universities paused graduate student admissions last month after the first wave of terminations before opening back up again in some cases. Regardless of university policy, many professors are doing their own risk forecasting, the professor said.

• "Everybody is being very, very careful in making new offers. ... Once we hire a Ph.D. student, we are responsible for their five years and we need to make sure we can fund them."

What we're watching: "I want parents who have children to know that opportunities for your kids, if they aspire to be scientists or engineers, are being stripped away right in front of you," the NSF employee told Axios.