NSF TechAccess: AI-Ready America

AI-Ready America is a national-scale initiative to accelerate Artificial Intelligence (AI) readiness and adoption across the U.S. by strengthening coordination, leveraging partnerships and resources, filling gaps, and scaling what works — so local and state priorities can lead in shaping an AI-driven economy that benefits all Americans.

The vision of the AI-Ready America program is to enable a future where every individual, community, and business thrives in an AI-driven economy. The program aims to expand access to AI knowledge, tools, training, and capacity building so all Americans can participate in and benefit from emerging AI opportunities.

The program in this initial call specifically supports:

State/Territory Coordination Hubs (Coordination Hubs) – one in every state, the District of Columbia (DC), or territory in the United States – connecting partners, strengthening planning and deployment, and rapidly scaling approaches.

The program goals for State/Territory Coordination Hubs program are to:

1. Enable all Americans to be AI-literate and AI-ready.
2. Empower businesses — especially small and emerging enterprises — to adopt AI to increase competitiveness, productivity, and growth.
3. Support local governments and organizations in harnessing the power of AI to improve public services and spur local innovation.
4. Strengthen workforce capacity to apply and innovate with AI across education, business and economic sectors, and public services.

The 5 Topic Areas under NSF TechAccess: AI-Ready America’s State/Territory Coordination Hubs are:

1. AI Learning and Resource Navigator
2. State/Territory AI Readiness Strategic Plan
3. AI Deployment Support
4. AI Readiness Training & Capacity Building
5. Coordination Within Priority Sectors

UCI may submit only one nomination to the AI-ready program; therefore, interested teams should submit (via the UCI Review application system) the following by Friday, April 17th :

• Two Page project summary outlining the focus of the proposed AI hub, the list of  academic, government, industry and community participants in the proposed hub, and the potential impact of the hub effort.
• Brief CV (up to 3 pages) from the project PI, and from key Co-PIs (if applicable).

If necessary, an ad hoc committee will then be convened to review the internal applications, and the selected team will be notified during the week of April 27, 2026, which will give candidates ample time to develop fand submit the required Letter of Intent (LOI) by 5:00 PM PDT on June 16, 2026,

If you have questions about the NSF AI-ready America program or about the interna competition, please contact Mike Gallo at, magallo@uci.edu  in the Office of Research (OR).