5872 Federal Register / Vol. 90, No. 11 / Friday, January 17, 2025 / Notices 

1https://www.mgi.gov/2024-materials-genomeinitiative-mgi-challenges. 

2https://www.mgi.gov/sites/default/files/ 

documents/MGI_Autonomous_Materials_

Innovation_Infrastructure_Workshop_Report.pdf. 

3https://www.mgi.gov/2024-materials-genomeinitiative-mgi-challenges. 

4https://www.nist.gov/system/files/documents/ 

2024/10/30/CHIPS%20CARISSMA%20NOFO.pdf. 

5https://nsf-gov-resources.nsf.gov/files/ 

nsf25508.pdf?VersionId=m260vPkM22sx

SgrP2Kawqho5qTCDdHYD. 

6https://arpa-e.energy.gov/technologies/ 

programs/catalchem-e. 

7https://www.mgi.gov/2024-materials-genomeinitiative-mgi-challenges. 

Signed in Washington, DC, on January 10, 

2025. 

Treena V. Garrett, 

Federal Register Liaison Officer, U.S. 

Department of Energy. 

[FR Doc. 2025–00736 Filed 1–16–25; 8:45 am] 

BILLING CODE 6450–01–P 

DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY 

Notice of Request for Information (RFI) 

on Autonomous Experimentation 

Platforms from Material Genome 

Initiative 

AGENCY: Office of Critical and Emerging 

Technologies, Department of Energy. 

ACTION: Request for information (RFI). 

SUMMARY: On behalf of the Material 

Genome Initiative (MGI), the 

Department of Energy (DOE) seeks 

public comment on autonomous 

experimentation platforms to inform 

implementation of the MGI Challenges 

and Autonomous Materials Innovation 

Infrastructure (AMII). 

DATES: Responses to the RFI are 

requested by March 21, 2025. 

ADDRESSES: Interested parties may 

submit comments electronically to 

info@mgi.gov and include ‘‘MGI RFI’’ in 

the subject line of the email. 

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: 

Further questions may be addressed to 

Charles Yang through info@mgi.gov or 

(202) 586–6116. 

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: 

I. Background 

This is an RFI issued by DOE in 

support of the Material Genome 

Initiative (MGI) that seeks public input 

to inform interagency coordination 

around Autonomous Experimentation 

(AE) platform research, development, 

capabilities, and infrastructure. This 

input will support the efforts of the 

recently announced MGI Challenges 

that aim to help unify and promote 

adoption of the Materials Innovation 

Infrastructure—through the expansion 

and integration of capabilities including 

autonomy, artificial intelligence, and 

robotics—to realize solutions to 

challenges of national interest.1 MGI is 

a Federal multi-agency initiative for 

discovering, manufacturing, and 

deploying advanced materials and 

supporting U.S. institutions in the 

adoption of methods for accelerating 

materials development, with over 15 

agency participants. 

For this RFI, MGI seeks input from 

stakeholders across the entire materials 

innovation ecosystem including but not 

limited to: 

• Academic and federally funded 

research and development centers 

• For-profit and non-profit AI 

developers 

• Consortia, public/private 

partnerships, and industry groups 

interested in AE 

• Scientific equipment manufacturers 

• Robotics/automation manufacturers 

and developers 

• Startups and investors 

• Scientific workforce and education 

organizations 

• Think tanks and science policy 

organizations 

• And other interested entities 

II. Purpose 

Autonomous experimentation (AE) is 

defined in the MGI Workshop Report on 

Autonomous Materials Innovation 

Infrastructure 2 as ‘‘the coupling of 

automated experimentation and in situ 

or in line analysis of results, with 

artificial intelligence (AI) to direct 

experiments in rapid, closed-loops.’’ 

The report identifies several 

technological advances coupled to 

existing techniques that need to be 

integrated to realize AE: 

(1) Laboratory automation, enabling 

robots to carry out the autonomous 

experimental tasks (Including transfer 

between instruments/experimental 

stations) prescribed by the decision 

algorithms. 

(2) Automated in-line & in situ 

sensing, characterization, and analysis 

capabilities to enable closed-loop 

autonomous experimentation. 

(3) Improved AI and autonomous 

experimentation decision methods for 

materials that enable faster and better 

R&D. 

(4) Improved software for hardware 

automation, sensing and autonomous 

experimentation. 

MGI announced five challenges to 

help unify and accelerate adoption of 

Materials Innovation Infrastructure to 

build scientific infrastructure to address 

issues national interest.3 These 

challenges build off several recent 

announcements from across the U.S. 

Government in support of AE systems, 

including funding for AE for 

semiconductor materials 4 from the 

CHIPS office in NIST, a National 

Science Foundation (NSF) solicitation 

for material discovery,5 and an ARPA– 

E funding opportunity for catalyst 

discovery with AE.6 This RFI is not a 

Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) 

or Funding Opportunity Announcement 

(FOA). 

This RFI seeks public input on 

existing research infrastructure as well 

as opportunities and challenges to 

leverage autonomous experimentation 

systems to realize the MGI Challenges. 

This RFI also seeks input on steps the 

MGI and the U.S. Government can take 

to support a broader research and 

development (R&D) ecosystem for 

autonomous experimentation systems. 

III. Questions 

1. MGI Challenges 

For any of the following MGI 

challenges, respondents may provide 

input on any number or all of the 

following topics: 

• Identify and map existing 

autonomous experimentation 

infrastructure suitable to addressing the 

MGI challenges; 

• Describe how autonomous 

experimentation systems should be 

designed and integrated to accomplish 

MGI challenges; 

• Describe promising technical 

approaches to addressing a particular 

challenge and how AE systems can be 

designed to accelerate progress in those 

approaches; 

• Describe obstacles to leveraging 

autonomous experimentation systems 

specific to a given MGI challenge that 

will need to be addressed. 

Clearly indicate which challenge is 

being responded to. Further details on 

the challenges can be found here.7 One 

response may respond to multiple 

challenges. 

(a) MGI Challenge: Point of Care TissueMimetic Materials for Biomedical 

Devices and Implants 

(b) MGI Challenge: Agile Manufacturing 

of Affordable Multi-Functional 

Composites 

(c) MGI Challenge: Quantum Position, 

Navigation, and Timing on a Chip 

(d) MGI Challenge: High Performance, 

Low Carbon Cementitious Materials 

(e) MGI Challenge: Sustainable 

Materials Design for Semiconductor 

Applications 

2. Partnerships and Consortium 

(a) How should the Material Genome 

Initiative (MGI) and the U.S. 


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Federal Register / Vol. 90, No. 11 / Friday, January 17, 2025 / Notices 5873 

Government more broadly partner with 

industry, academia, and other 

stakeholders to realize autonomous 

experimentation platforms? Are there 

specific models that should be 

considered? 

(b) What role can a public-private 

consortium play in supporting the 

development of autonomous 

experimentation? How should a 

consortium be structured and who 

should be involved? 

(c) What are the non-technical barriers 

to realizing the broad impact of AE that 

partnerships and consortia can address? 

For example, standards development, 

experimental equipment integration, 

etc. 

(d) How can MGI and the U.S. 

Government more broadly work with 

the affected communities to support the 

development of AE systems for science? 

How can MGI and the U.S. Government 

work with private industry to support 

technology transition of innovations 

developed by the community? 

3. Workforce 

(a) How can the MGI agencies support 

the equitable development of an AIready scientific workforce, with the 

skills and knowledge needed to work 

with, operate, and leverage autonomous 

experimentation platforms? 

(b) How do the workforce skills and 

knowledge needed to realize 

autonomous experimentation systems as 

a new scientific infrastructure overlap 

with other valuable scientific and 

engineering discipline needs? 

4. Scientific Equipment, Automation, 

and Software Interfaces 

(a) What types of robotic automation 

hardware and software are most 

applicable for scientific autonomous 

experimentation systems? 

(b) What are obstacles and challenges 

to integrating robotic automation with 

scientific equipment? What role can 

software Application Programming 

Interface (API) standards play in 

developing autonomous 

experimentation systems? How can MGI 

and the U.S. Government work with 

private industry, including equipment 

manufacturers and autonomy 

developers, to develop API standards for 

the industry and accelerate adoption 

and development of AE systems? 

IV. Response Guidelines 

Commenters are welcome to comment 

on any question. RFI responses shall 

include: 

1. RFI title; 

2. Name(s), phone number(s), and 

email address(es) for the principal 

point(s) of contact; 

3. Institution or organization 

affiliation and postal address; and 

4. Clear indication of the specific 

question(s) to which you are 

responding. 

Responses to this RFI must be 

submitted electronically to info@

mgi.gov with the subject line ‘‘MGI RFI’’ 

no later than 5 p.m. (ET) on March 21, 

2025. Responses must be provided as 

attachments to an email. It is 

recommended that attachments with file 

sizes exceeding 25 MB be compressed 

(i.e., zipped) to ensure message delivery. 

Responses must be provided as a 

Microsoft Word (*.docx) or Adobe 

Acrobat (*.pdf) attachment to the email 

and should be no more than 15 pages in 

length, 12-point font, 1-inch margins. 

Only electronic responses will be 

accepted. Only one response per 

individual or organization will be 

accepted. 

A response to this RFI will not be 

viewed as a binding commitment to 

develop or pursue the project or ideas 

discussed. 

Confidential Business Information 

Because information received in 

response to this RFI may be used to 

structure future programs and/or 

otherwise be made available to the 

public, respondents are strongly advised 

NOT to include any information in their 

responses that might be considered 

business sensitive, proprietary, or 

otherwise confidential. 

Pursuant to 10 CFR 1004.11, any 

person submitting information that he 

or she believes to be confidential and 

exempt by law from public disclosure 

should submit via email two wellmarked copies: one copy of the 

document marked ‘‘confidential’’ 

including all the information believed to 

be confidential, and one copy of the 

document marked ‘‘non-confidential’’ 

with the information believed to be 

confidential deleted. Failure to comply 

with these marking requirements may 

result in the disclosure of the unmarked 

information under the Freedom of 

Information Act or otherwise. The U.S. 

Government is not liable for the 

disclosure or use of unmarked 

information and may use or disclose 

such information for any purpose. If 

your response contains confidential, 

proprietary, or privileged information, 

you must include a cover sheet marked 

as follows identifying the specific pages 

containing confidential, proprietary, or 

privileged information. 

Notice of Restriction on Disclosure and 

Use of Data 

Pages [list applicable pages] of this 

response may contain confidential, 

proprietary, or privileged information 

that is exempt from public disclosure. 

Such information shall be used or 

disclosed only for the purposes 

described in this RFI. The Government 

may use or disclose any information 

that is not appropriately marked or 

otherwise restricted, regardless of 

source. 

In addition, (1) the header and footer 

of every page that contains confidential, 

proprietary, or privileged information 

must be marked as follows: ‘‘Contains, 

Confidential, Proprietary, or Privileged 

Information Exempt from Public 

Disclosure’’ and (2) every line and 

paragraph containing proprietary, 

privileged, or trade secret information 

must be clearly marked with [[double 

brackets]] or highlighting. Submissions 

containing CBI should be sent to info@

mgi.gov. 

Signing Authority 

This document of the Department of 

Energy was signed on January 13, 2025, 

by Helena Fu, Director, Office of Critical 

and Emerging Technologies, pursuant to 

delegated authority from the Secretary 

of Energy. That document with the 

original signature and date is 

maintained by DOE. For administrative 

purposes only, and in compliance with 

requirements of the Office of the Federal 

Register, the undersigned DOE Federal 

Register Liaison Officer has been 

authorized to sign and submit the 

document in electronic format for 

publication, as an official document of 

the Department of Energy. This 

administrative process in no way alters 

the legal effect of this document upon 

publication in the Federal Register. 

Signed in Washington, DC, on January 14, 

2025. 

Jennifer Hartzell, 

Alternate Federal Register Liaison Officer, 

U.S. Department of Energy. 

[FR Doc. 2025–01161 Filed 1–16–25; 8:45 am] 

BILLING CODE 6450–01–P 

DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY 

Federal Energy Regulatory 

Commission 

Combined Notice of Filings #1 

Take notice that the Commission 

received the following electric corporate 

filings: 

Docket Numbers: EC25–38–000. 

Applicants: Catalina Solar, LLC, PGR 

2023 Lessee 1, LLC. 

Description: Joint Application for 

Authorization Under Section 203 of the 

Federal Power Act of Catalina Solar, 

LLC, et al. 


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