What is a Test Bed?
The TOPSAIL test bed is currently in planning phase. It was conceived in response to the National Science Foundation's Dear Colleague Letter (July 22, 2024), which invited proposals to expand existing test beds and infrastructure to make them AI-ready and appropriate for use in evaluating the impact and effect of AI tools and systems on users. TOPSAIL is the first and only NSF-funded test bed initiative in education.
"It's clear that AI holds transformative potential to reshape how our world functions," said Erwin Gianchandani, NSF assistant director for TIP. "The AI-ready test beds program is designed to help researchers across academia and industry accelerate that transformation by simulating the dynamic, real-world conditions that AI systems and technologies will encounter as they scale and deploy. By catalyzing living labs focused on critical sectors and use-cases, this program lays the foundation for what could become essential infrastructure for a promising AI-enabled future."
NSF invests in AI-ready test beds to accelerate U.S. leadership
August 6, 2025
The National Science Foundation considers testbeds as vital infrastructure for advancing scientific and engineering frontiers. They provide platforms in real-world environments to rigorously develop, evaluate, and deploy new technologies, ensuring their impact and scalability. These testbeds emphasize interdisciplinary collaboration and aim to bridge the gap between fundamental research and practical applications. This approach includes supporting diverse users, promoting reproducibility through standardization and data sharing, integrating AI into real-world environments, and creating strong guardrails to protect users' privacy and safety.
Despite its profound societal impact, education remains one of the most challenging domains of research due to the difficulty of experimental control in school settings, and barriers to student data collection and access. Additionally, artificial intelligence (AI) enabled learning technologies raise new concerns about student privacy and safety that exacerbate these challenges. As AI tools introduce new possibilities for improving student achievement, the need for rigorous, reproducible studies becomes increasingly more acute. The goal of TOPSAIL is to develop AI-ready research infrastructure that will carefully and systematically circumvent these barriers.