U.S. National Science Foundation State and Regional Artificial Intelligence Infrastructure Hubs:

Why it matters

Program pool versus individual award

Anticipated program funding range

$40 million to $100 million, subject to available funds

Approximate funds described by NSF

Approximately $100 million available for this program

Anticipated number of awards

Approximately 10 cooperative agreements

Typical five-year request

$4 million to $12 million

Expected award duration

Up to five years

Awards by geography

No more than one award per state or multistate region

Required cost sharing

Not required; voluntary committed cost sharing is permitted

Current full-proposal deadline

November 4, 2026 at 5:00 p.m. in the submitting organization's local time

Who can actually apply

• Accredited U.S. two-year and four-year institutions of higher education, including community colleges, may submit as the lead organization.
• U.S. nonprofit, nonacademic organizations with research or education activities may submit as the lead organization.
• The solicitation does not list state or local governments, for-profit companies, philanthropic organizations, foreign organizations, or individuals as independent lead applicants. Those entities may participate where the proposal and NSF rules allow them as partners, subawardees, vendors, or other collaborators.
• Each proposing institution may submit only one proposal as the lead. An individual may participate in no more than one proposal as PI, co-PI, or other senior/key personnel. Internal selection and personnel conflict checks should happen before proposal development is distributed across the consortium.
• The proposal must represent one state or a coherent multistate region. NSF expects to make no more than one award per state or multistate region, so applicants should define the region and explain why the participating institutions, infrastructure, industry, workforce, and governance form one operating system.
• At least one regional industry or nonprofit partner is required. The solicitation encourages letters documenting roles and commitments. A partner name without a defined contribution, access role, workforce connection, or resource commitment does not establish readiness.
• The consortium must make substantial AI infrastructure available for the proposed five-year period. On-premises and cloud-based resources may be part of the model, but the proposal must document the resources, access, capacity, and commitments rather than budget NSF funds to acquire them.
• Separate collaborative proposals are not permitted. The application uses one lead organization, with other organizations represented through the permitted subaward and partnership structure.
• A planning proposal is a different route governed by the current NSF Proposal and Award Policies and Procedures Guide. It can support consortium formation or planning, but it is not a full Hub award and should not be presented as an automatic preliminary stage.

Deadline, forms, and submission sequence

1. Confirm solicitation NSF 26-513 on the NSF program page and Grants.gov opportunity 363481. Record the solicitation version and any amendment date before the team relies on this analysis.
2. Choose the legal lead from the listed eligible organizations. Complete an internal one-proposal check for the institution and a one-proposal participation check for every PI, co-PI, and other senior/key person.
3. Define one state or coherent multistate region. Map the participating two-year and four-year institutions, nonprofit research or education organizations, AI-intensive universities, minority-serving institutions where relevant, employers, workforce intermediaries, and community partners the operating model will serve.
4. Inventory the AI infrastructure the consortium can make available for five years. For each on-premises or cloud resource, record owner, location, capability, capacity, access unit, security or data constraints, availability date, eligible users, support model, planned allocation, and evidence of commitment.
5. Remove acquisition costs that NSF explicitly excludes. Do not budget NSF funds for buying compute, data, software, networking, storage, cloud, or other AI systems or services. Reconcile every infrastructure reference with a non-NSF commitment, an existing resource, or another documented acquisition path.
6. Design governance and access together. Identify the lead, decision rights, allocation process, user intake, technical support, security and responsible-use controls, dispute path, advisory roles, performance monitoring, and how institutions with fewer resources receive usable access rather than nominal membership.
7. Secure at least one regional industry or nonprofit partner and define every partner contribution. Use letters, vendor quotes, or other documentation encouraged by the solicitation to support infrastructure, workforce, curriculum, faculty development, access, and sustainability commitments.
8. Build the workforce-development plan around regional demand and practical use of the infrastructure. Identify participants, employers or workforce partners, competencies, learning formats, access support, outputs, and measures. Distinguish workforce training from the faculty-development requirement.
9. Plan faculty training and curriculum. NSF expects development or adaptation of five to ten new or enhanced courses, workshops, or other activities over the award period. Record the institutions, faculty audience, delivery method, infrastructure used, adoption support, reusable materials, and timeline for each planned activity.
10. Organize the project description around the five required elements: governance, vision, and deliverables; AI infrastructure; partnerships; workforce development; and faculty training plus educational materials. Cross-reference each claim to a named owner, resource, milestone, budget line, and supporting document.
11. Prepare the required supplementary table describing roles and responsibilities by organization and the list of participating institutions. Check every name and role against the budget, subawards, facilities, letters, and project description.
12. Build the budget for coordination, access enablement, personnel, education, workforce, evaluation, travel, and other allowed project work. Include the required travel connected to the National AI Research Resource activity described by NSF. Keep voluntary contributions distinct from required cost sharing, because NSF does not require cost share.
13. Complete all current Research.gov or Grants.gov forms, senior-personnel documents, data-management and mentoring materials when applicable, facilities information, collaborators and affiliations, budget justification, and solicitation-specific supplements under the current PAPPG.
14. Submit by November 4, 2026 at 5:00 p.m. in the submitting organization's local time. Preserve the validated receipt, exact submitted files, letters, infrastructure commitments, and source versions, then monitor NSF for amendments and panel communications.

Primary sources

• NSF 26-513 solicitation
• NSF AI Infrastructure Hubs program page
• NSF program announcement
• Grants.gov opportunity 363481
• Current NSF PAPPG

Related opportunities and the next search

• Compare NSF AI-Ready Data Sets

  Review the current NSF 26-512 data-infrastructure opportunity and its November 4, 2026 deadline.

• Compare NSF cyberinfrastructure security

  Review the current CICI route for cybersecurity that benefits scientific cyberinfrastructure and its users.

• Compare NSF security and privacy research

  Review the current SaTC 2.0 research and education route and distinguish its target dates from hard deadlines.