NSF invests over $10M to advance U.S. leadership in privacy-enhancing technologies and accelerate their use for real-world solutions
Awardees will develop practical privacy-preserving data sharing and analytics solutions across a range of science and technology domains and economic sectors, with emphasis on real-world deployment, test beds and industry collaboration
The U.S. National Science Foundation Directorate for Technology, Innovation and Partnerships (NSF TIP), in partnership with the NSF Directorate for Computer and Information Science and Engineering (NSF CISE), Intel and Broadcom, and the U.S. Department of Transportation Federal Highway Administration and the U.S. Department of Commerce National Institute of Standards and Technology, announced an inaugural investment of $10.4 million over three years to 10 teams as part of the Privacy-Preserving Data Sharing in Practice (NSF PDaSP) initiative.
The 10 projects will develop practical privacy-preserving data sharing and analytics solutions across a range of science and technology domains and economic sectors— from healthcare and transportation to agriculture and cybersecurity — using techniques like federated learning, secure multiparty computation, differential privacy, and trusted execution environments and emphasizing real-world deployment, industry collaboration and community test beds. NSF PDaSP teams intentionally include key industry partners and aim to advance privacy-enhancing technologies (PETs) that will accelerate U.S. organizations' and government agencies' ability to share and analyze data to solve real-world problems privately.
"NSF is prioritizing investments in critical technologies to ensure a reliable and practical AI future while at the same time positioning the U.S. as a global leader in AI," said Erwin Gianchandani, the assistant director for NSF TIP. "The outcomes from these NSF investments will empower government agencies and private industry to adopt leading-edge PETs and harness the power and insights of data for the public good."
The expansion of computational power and the explosive growth of data create tremendous opportunities to enable data-driven, evidence-based decision-making capabilities to accelerate scientific discovery and innovation. To leverage insights from data, organizations need practical, deployable and scalable technologies that allow data sharing in a privacy-preserving manner. The PDaSP program addresses these needs by prioritizing research, development and the availability of testing environments to support the maturation and deployment of PETs in application-specific contexts, including national security, biotechnology and advanced computing.
The PDaSP initiative is part of TIP's broader portfolio of investments to accelerate use-inspired and translational research and development, as well as workforce development, to advance U.S. competitiveness in key technology areas.
Learn more about TIP's work in emerging technologies.
About NSF TIP
The NSF Directorate for Technology, Innovation and Partnerships (NSF TIP) seeks to engage all Americans in accelerating critical and emerging technologies to advance U.S. competitiveness. The directorate partners across sectors to advance three strategies — accelerating critical and emerging technology, expanding the geography of American innovation and building a competition-ready workforce. For more information about NSF TIP, visit nsf.gov/tip/latest.