Schedule & Milestones¶

High-level phase schedule¶

Phase	Description	Months
1	Prototype development on leveraged infrastructure	1–12
2	Science-case + user-community maturation	12–18
2 (continued)	Sustainability + follow-on proposal preparation	18–24

Period of performance: June 1, 2026 – May 31, 2028.

Major milestones (baseline)¶

ID	Milestone	Target Month	Owner
M1.1	Project kickoff; baselined PEP filed; CCB chartered	1	PI
M1.2	IaC templates published; Kubernetes on Jetstream-2 operational	3	Roberts
M1.3	Lakehouse prototype (Goal 1) end-to-end on benchmark data	6	Cao
M1.4	Data Mesh prototype (Goal 2) — first federated zone	8	Russell
M1.5	Agentic AI prototype (Goal 3) — MCP + vLLM + RAG end-to-end	10	Roberts
M1.6	Phase 1 prototype demonstrated end-to-end on leveraged infrastructure	12	PI
M2.1	UC1 (Agentic Discovery + Multi-Omics) reproducible workflow + DOI	15	Roberts, Chism
M2.2	UC2 (Geospatial + EHT sub-PB demo) reproducible workflow + DOI	17	Chan
M2.3	UC3 (IoT / Edge) reproducible workflow + DOI	18	Chen
M3.1	Empirical hardware specification published	22	Swetnam, Cao, Russell, Edgin
M3.2	≥ 8 letters of support secured	23	Project Ops Mgr
M3.3	Submission-ready follow-on Cat I/II operations proposal package	24	PI

Schedule contingency¶

The Y1-front-loaded staffing pattern provides 24-month personnel continuity even if some staff turn over in Y2. RENCI's reduced 25% Y2 staffing buys ~2 months of slack against policy-engine timeline slip.

Reporting cadence¶

Weekly — UA-side stand-up; RENCI-side stand-up
Monthly — Combined UA + RENCI status review; CCB
Quarterly — PI ↔ Co-PI Russell status meeting; NSF program officer check-in (informal)
Twice-yearly — External AI Ethics Advisory Board review
Annually — NSF annual report; full project review with all stakeholders
Final — NSF final report at Month 24; follow-on-proposal submission