About AIFS
Our mission
AI for the whole food system, from crop breeding to nutrition.
AIFS develops new AI and puts it to work at every stage of the food system: crop breeding, farming, food processing and nutrition. We pair research breakthroughs with the work that helps industry adopt them and prepares the workforce to use them.
A three-part strategy
Founded
2020
Established October 1, 2020, as one of the first National AI Research Institutes.
Funding
$60Minvested since 2020. Core funding comes from USDA-NIFA, within the NSF-led AI Institutes program.
Six institutions, one institute
- UC DavisLeadUniversity of California, Davis
- UC BerkeleyUniversity of California, Berkeley
- CornellCornell University
- IllinoisUniversity of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
- UC ANRUC Agriculture and Natural Resources
- USDA-ARSUSDA Agricultural Research Service
Our vision
A food system in which every decision, from what to grow to what to eat, enables us to live longer, healthier lives.
Research
Three research themes
Our projects span the food system, from growing crops to what people eat.
Food System and Supply Chain Resiliency
AI that makes the food system and its supply chains more resilient, with new technology that changes how the work gets done.
AI-Driven Food Systems to Improve Human Health
AI to find, create, grow, process and distribute nutritious, functional foods that improve consumer health.
AI Infrastructure Development for Food Systems
Shared data, models and tools that meet unmet needs and serve the whole food-system community.
Our approach
How we work
Three commitments shape every AIFS project.
01
Connect digital and biological
We integrate digital and biological technologies to match the complexity and diversity of food systems.
02
Open by default
We build AI models and datasets, and we make them publicly available for others to use.
Tools & data03
Better human decisions
We make food-system tasks that depend on human judgment safer, more efficient and more accurate.
Impact
What we have delivered since 2020
AIFS advances AI across the food system, with distinctive strength at the intersection of food, nutrition and human health. We measure ourselves by what others can use.
At a glance
Figures as of November 2026 · Updated quarterly
Our impact
From high-school camps to Nature Food: the full picture
Four ways we measure impact
- 01Tools adopted5 open platforms
- 02People trained1,500+ undergraduates
- 03Science that changes practice200+ papers
- 04Community convened2,500+ attendees
People
The team behind AIFS
Researchers, students, staff and advisors from six institutions.
The team
Meet the 148 people who make AIFS work
Who we are
Research clusters span foundational AI, molecular breeding, agricultural production, food processing, and socioeconomics and ethics.
Leadership
Ilias Tagkopoulos
Director and Principal Investigator
Mason Earles
Co-PI and Lead of Agricultural Production Cluster
Renata Ivanek
Executive Committee Member, Cornell Site Lead
Danielle Lemay
Executive Committee Member, USDA-ARS WHNC Site Lead, Lead of Nutrition Cluster
Xin Liu
Co-PI and Co-Lead of Use-Inspired and Foundational AI Cluster
Nitin Nitin
Co-PI and Lead of Food Processing and Distribution Cluster
Supported by
- Google.org
- Meta
- Bezos Earth Fund