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HDR Ecosystem Conference
AI & Science: From Geospatial to Convergence
Student Center West, University of Illinois Chicago
Chicago, Illinois, USA
August 5-7, 2026
The NSF Harnessing the Data Revolution (HDR) Ecosystem Conference is the premier national gathering of the HDR network—an integrated fabric of institutes, TRIPODS, Data Science Corps, and more-that are accelerating data-driven discovery across science and engineering. The overarching goal of this conference series is to enable sharing of experiences, perspectives, and synergistic activities that span its comprised five Institutes.
This year, the HDR Ecosystem Conference will highlight AI & Science: From Geospatial to Convergence. It will take place August 5-7, 2026, at the University of Illinois in Chicago, immediately following the I-GUIDE Forum. This allows participants at both events to take advantage of the momentum, energy, and synergy of several hundred attendees gathering to explore solutions to the most significant scientific challenges!
About the HDR Ecosystem
The Harnessing the Data Revolution (HDR) Community is a national ecosystem formed by five NSF-funded institutes to advance data-intensive science, engineering, and education through convergence research. Established under the NSF’s Harnessing the Data Revolution Big Idea initiative, the HDR Community brings together domain scientists, data scientists, and cyberinfrastructure experts to accelerate discovery, innovate scalable and interoperable tools, and prepare a broad data-enabled workforce. The HDR Ecosystem consists of
- Accelerated AI Algorithms for Data-Driven Discovery (A3D3),
- Institute for Data Driven Dynamical Design (ID4),
- Institute for Geospatial Understanding through an Integrative Discovery Environment (I-GUIDE),
- Institute for Harnessing Data and Model Revolution in the Polar Regions (iHARP), and the
- Imageomics Institute
Since its establishment in 2022, the HDR Ecosystem has hosted an annual Conference to enable sharing of experiences, perspectives, and synergistic activities that span the five Institutes connecting the NSF-funded HDR Ecosystem. The HDR Ecosystem Conference has objectives to:
- Strengthen relationships within the HDR ecosystem and the broader data-intensive research community.
- Share cutting-edge research and activities in data science, AI, and convergence science.
- Discuss cross-cutting activities that address shared challenges and identify new opportunities to sustain and grow the HDR ecosystem and advance data-intensive research.
- Identify and discuss synergies between data science, AI, and cyberinfrastructure and advance a vision of positioning the HDR ecosystem as an integral part of AI & Science research initiatives.
- Promote successful approaches to data-intensive education and training across the HDR community and beyond.
The Harnessing the Data Revolution (HDR) Community is supported by the National Science Foundation under Awards: 2118240, 2118201, 2118285, 2118329, and 2117997.