Microsoft has committed $60 million to the US Department of Energy’s Genesis Mission, an initiative using artificial intelligence to speed up scientific research. The investment matters because it adds major private-sector computing capacity and technical support to a federal effort intended to strengthen US research, energy innovation and national security.

The package includes $40 million in Azure cloud-computing and AI credits over three years, plus $20 million for engineering and deployment services. Microsoft is also creating a coordination hub called SPARK to work with the department and its 17 national laboratories; the mission aims to double the productivity and impact of US science and engineering within a decade.