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 initiative, named NSF BRIDGE, is intended to help scientific communities across the nation utilize advanced data science and artificial intelligence (AI) tools more effectively.
The award, led by UC Irvine computer science professor Chen Li, will support scientific communities in deploying computing platforms tailored to their specific research needs. These platforms will facilitate the sharing of datasets, analysis pipelines, and machine learning models among researchers. The system is built on Texera, an open-source system that originated in 2016 and is currently being incubated by the Apache Software Foundation.
Texera-based platforms are designed to operate on public cloud services, such as Amazon Web Services, or on computing clusters managed by research laboratories. A key objective of NSF BRIDGE is to enable scientists to collaborate on data analysis and apply AI techniques without requiring extensive IT knowledge or advanced programming skills. The project aims to bridge the gap between the vast amount of data now being generated across many scientific fields and the rapid advancements in AI, transforming observations into actionable knowledge.
Rather than tasking scientists with setting up complex computing systems or writing intricate code in languages like Python or R, NSF BRIDGE will allow scientific communities to deploy Texera as an online platform. This platform will serve as a central hub where researchers can store and share data with collaborators, and then analyze it using AI-powered tools. Many tasks will be completable through visual dataflows and plain-language instructions provided to AI agents, simplifying the research process.
Professor Li, from UC Irvine's Donald Bren School of Information & Computer Sciences, serves as the principal investigator for the three-year project. His work builds on more than a decade of open-source development through the Texera project, aiming to enable seamless knowledge sharing and collaboration without requiring programming expertise. The NSF BRIDGE project is funded through the U.S. National Science Foundation’s Integrated Data Systems and Services program, which supports national research infrastructure dedicated to helping scientists use data and AI to solve complex problems.
In addition to Li, co-principal investigators include Wei Wang from UCLA; Ardalan Amiri Sani from UC Irvine's ICS; Kristin Turney from UC Irvine’s School of Social Sciences; and Rui Chen from UC Irvine’s School of Medicine. Subawards for the project are directed to UCLA’s Wang and Naomi Sugie, Michigan’s Steve Parker, and the Research Cyberinfrastructure Center at UC Irvine. Parker, a professor at the University of Michigan, noted that the system will empower researchers in his bioinformatics domain to build and share flexible workflows without programming expertise, accelerating scientific discovery.
The NSF BRIDGE initiative will provide comprehensive software services, including documentation, training, and technical support, to assist research labs and domains in deploying the Texera system. The team has already collaborated with five scientific domains and is actively seeking additional partners interested in leveraging the software system and services to enhance their research using data science and AI techniques.
