“Harnessing the Data Renaissance for Scientific Discovery” (Video Recording of Closing Plenary; Coalition For Networked Information (CNI) Spring 2026 Membership Meeting)

Here’s the video recording of the closing plenary talk (recorded at the Spring 2026 CNI Membership Meeting in Salt Lake City) by Manish Parashar, Executive Director, Scientific Computing and Imaging Institute; Inaugural Chief AI Officer; Presidential Professor, University of Utah.

Manish is introduced by  Kate Zwaard, CNI Executive Director

The current data renaissance, accelerated by advances in artificial intelligence, is reshaping the landscape of research, scholarship, and innovation. Yet unlocking this potential requires more than scale alone. It calls for a transdisciplinary approach that brings together diverse data and computational infrastructure along with multidisciplinary expertise across institutions. Despite the rapid expansion of digital data and widespread access to powerful computing, building effective, responsible, and reusable data-driven research workflows remains a persistent challenge. Issues of discovery, access, interoperability, governance, and sustainability continue to limit the full realization of data-driven science. In this talk, Parashar will explore the critical role of democratizing access to open data and shared cyberinfrastructure in enabling equitable and responsible data use. He will also introduce the vision, architecture, and deployment of the National Data Platform as part of a broader national cyberinfrastructure effort. This initiative aims to catalyze a more open, extensible, and interoperable data ecosystem that supports discovery, collaboration, and long-term stewardship across the research enterprise.

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