The Department of Defense (DoD) will award $50 million in funds through the Defense University Research Instrumentation Program to 150 university researchers to support the acceleration of research activities in machine learning, quantum sciences and hypersonics.
The funding opportunity will also back projects that will explore the design, development and characterization of various materials, DoD said Tuesday. DoD issued a solicitation areas of engineering and foundational science.
The awardees were selected via a competitive process launched by the U.S. Army Research Office, the U.S. Air Force Office of Scientific Research and the Office of Naval Research.
Bindu Nair, director at the Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Research and Engineering's basic research office, said DoD seeks to field scientific approaches that will prepare potential science, technology, engineering and mathematics professionals throuh the funding effort.
According to DoD, the team received 742 proposals for the solicitation while funding requests have reached a total of $297M.