The University of Utah has been selected by the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) to establish one of only 20 Programmable Cloud Laboratory Nodes in the country. This new research facility will enable scientists and AI agents nationwide to design, run, and analyze physical experiments over the internet.
The Utah node, named AURORA (Autonomous Utah Resource for Open Research Automation), is funded with $20 million over four years as part of the NSF’s $380 million PCL Test Bed program. This initiative supports the U.S. government’s Genesis Mission to utilize artificial intelligence for scientific discovery.
AURORA will integrate two existing NSF-funded resources at the university: the MonArk NSF Quantum Foundry and the CloudLab platform from the Kahlert School of Computing. This combination creates a self-driving laboratory capable of fabricating quantum devices, measuring them at cryogenic temperatures, and using AI models to determine subsequent manufacturing steps.
Taylor Sparks, professor of Materials Science & Engineering and director of AURORA, stated that the facility is accessible via laptop, allowing students at community colleges in rural areas to operate the same robotics as on-site professors. The project aims to solve reproducibility issues in quantum materials research by standardizing fabrication steps and logging parameters to create metadata-rich datasets for AI training.
The laboratory will utilize a Fork-Validate-Merge model. While the University of Utah's Quantum Foundry serves as the stable production branch, a companion facility at the University of Arkansas will act as a development sandbox for testing new instruments and software.
Beyond research capabilities, AURORA will provide educational training ranging from K-12 to postdoctoral levels through workshops, online bootcamps, and digital programming. Recruitment efforts will target community colleges, regional universities, and minority-serving institutions.
Collaborating academic institutions include Johns Hopkins University and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Industry partners for the project include Atomic Sandwiches, nOhm Devices, NTS Innovations, and the Southwest Advanced Prototyping Hub.
