National Science Foundation’s Open Knowledge Network Goes Live

The National Science Foundation's (NSF's) Open Knowledge Network (OKN), which makes data from knowledge graphs across various government agencies available to AI-assisted search, is now live and available to the public. Development of the OKN began in 2023, when the NSF announced its Prototype Open Knowledge Network. The project  was initially funded by a handful of federal agencies, including NASA, the NIH, and the NOAA. 

Aligned with the US government’s Genesis Mission to accelerate scientific discovery and innovation with AI technologies, the prototype drew support from additional agencies; the result is a vast network of previously disconnected datasets and the infrastructure to support it. The NSF stresses that the data in the network is AI-ready: 

OKN's value goes beyond machines querying structured knowledge: Its deeper value provides AI systems with a shared, explicit, interoperable, and auditable representation of the world on which they are expected to reason and act. 

They also note that with knowledge graphs from over a dozen federal agencies, information in the network will benefit not only researchers, but also professionals across a wide range of fields.

The network is freely available for public use at okn.us, and users can connect AI assistants to the knowledge graphs. The full press release is available on the NSF website.