NSF X-Labs Request for Information

U .S. N ATION AL S CIEN CE F OU ND ATIO N (N SF)

Directorate for Technology, Innovation and Partnerships (TIP)

Request for Information (RFI)
Identifying the Next Generation of NSF X-Labs Topics

Item

Detail

Issued by

U.S. National Science Foundation Directorate for Technology, Innovation and Partnerships (NSF TIP)

Publication date

September 16, 2026

Response deadline

October 30, 2026, 11:59 p.m. ET

How to respond

Online submission portal at
https://airtable.com/appNk4qtVYmefmLJP/pag65OQxCgsshOSae/form

Who should
respond

Anyone with a substantive view on where the next platform-technology bottleneck lies, including academia, industry, national laboratories, startups and venture capital, philanthropy, nonprofits, professional societies, state and local government, students, and the interested public

Point of contact

[email protected]

1. Purpose

The U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) seeks input on scientific and technological opportunities that could become future topics for the NSF X-Labs Initiative. NSF X-labs aims to accelerate scientific and technological breakthroughs by supporting a new generation of independent, milestone-driven research organizations: full-time teams of talented, mission-driven personnel pursuing platform-technology breakthroughs that are difficult to achieve when using more conventional funding and research mechanisms. The NSF Technology, Innovation and Partnership (TIP) Directorate’s December 2025 RFI on the X-Labs concept drew substantial, constructive responses from across academia, industry, philanthropy, state and local government, venture capital, and the public, with that input shaping the initiative's design and first funding opportunities. As of the date of release of this RFI, NSF X-Labs has now launched three topics, Quantum Systems: Interconnects and Integrated Photonics, Scientific Instrumentation for Sensing and Imaging, and AI for Physical Systems, with two more topics announced for future release: From Sequence to Function; Computation at the Limit of Physics.
While these topics span several critical areas of the emerging technological landscape, NSF believes the NSF X-Labs initiative holds promise for an even wider range of topics.

This RFI seeks input about candidate X-Labs topics, the bottlenecks currently preventing significant progress being made in those topics, new opportunities that could be developed or leveraged to overcome them, and the conditions needed for an independent NSF X-Labs team to break through one