Researchers at UC Irvine, UCLA, and the University of Michigan have received nearly $9 million from the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) to establish a new data infrastructure capability. This project, known as NSF BRIDGE, aims to assist scientific communities across the nation in utilizing advanced data science and artificial intelligence tools.
The award is led by UC Irvine computer science professor Chen Li, who serves as the principal investigator. NSF BRIDGE helps scientific communities deploy computing platforms tailored to their specific research needs, fostering an environment where researchers can share datasets, analysis pipelines, and machine learning models.
Built on the open-source Texera system, these platforms are designed to operate on public clouds, such as Amazon Web Services, or on computing clusters managed by research laboratories. This infrastructure will enable scientists to collaborate on data analysis and apply AI techniques without requiring advanced IT or programming expertise.
The volume of data generated across scientific fields has grown significantly, coupled with rapid advancements in AI. NSF BRIDGE is intended to facilitate the transformation of observations into actionable knowledge by removing technical barriers and integrating deep domain expertise with AI and large-scale computing.
Instead of needing to set up complex computing systems or write sophisticated scripts, NSF BRIDGE allows scientific communities to deploy Texera as an online platform. This platform will enable researchers to store data, share it with collaborators, and analyze it using AI-powered tools. Tasks can often be completed through visual dataflows and plain-language instructions to AI agents, bypassing the need for coding in languages like Python or R.
Chen Li stated that the project builds on more than a decade of open-source development through Texera, aiming to transform how scientific communities use data science and AI. He added that NSF BRIDGE will enable seamless knowledge sharing and collaboration without requiring programming expertise.
This three-year project leverages Texera, which began in 2016 as an open-source system for collaborative data science using GUI-based workflows. The system is currently incubated by the Apache Software Foundation. By making advanced computing more accessible, NSF BRIDGE seeks to accelerate discovery across various fields and help build shared knowledge bases for data science and AI within scientific communities.
Funding for NSF BRIDGE comes through the U.S. National Science Foundation’s Integrated Data Systems and Services program. This program supports national research infrastructure designed to help scientists use data and artificial intelligence to address complex problems across scientific disciplines. The data infrastructure provides research labs and domains with the means to deploy the Texera system and offers software services, including documentation, training, and technical support.
Wei Wang, a co-principal investigator on the award and a professor of computer science at UCLA, noted that the Texera system offers a novel platform that makes state-of-the-art AI and machine learning techniques accessible to a broad range of scientific domains. He expects NSF BRIDGE, through Texera, to accelerate AI adoption in these fields.
Steve Parker, a senior personnel member from the University of Michigan, provided an example: the Texera system will empower researchers in bioinformatics to build and share flexible workflows that integrate their data with public resources, all without programming expertise. Parker anticipates this will bridge the gap between experimental research and computational analysis, accelerating scientific discovery.
Beyond Chen Li from the Donald Bren School of Information & Computer Sciences as principal investigator, the UC Irvine team includes co-principal investigators Ardalan Amiri Sani, also from ICS, Kristin Turney from the School of Social Sciences, and Rui Chen from the School of Medicine. Subawards for the project include UCLA’s Wang and Naomi Sugie, Michigan’s Parker, and the Research Cyberinfrastructure Center at UC Irvine.
In addition to five domains the team has already engaged, the NSF BRIDGE team is actively seeking new partners interested in using the software system and its services to support their research with data science and AI techniques.
