Amlight: the next frontier towards discovery in the americas and africa

The National Science Foundation's Office of Integrative Activities awarded Florida International University $9 million under the Integrative Activities program (CFDA 47.083) beginning October 1, 2025, through September 30, 2030, to maintain and enhance the AMLight international network infrastructure supporting the Vera Rubin Observatory and U.S.-led global science initiatives across the Americas and Africa. The project delivers critical long-haul connectivity, colocation services, and software infrastructure that enable data-intensive scientific workflows for astronomy projects, the Large Hadron Collider, and environmental sensing initiatives. Core deliverables include enhanced network operation and automation capabilities featuring predictive fault detection models, telemetry-driven automation, smart network interface monitoring, and multi-domain orchestration—innovations that serve as reproducible research platforms for computer networking, cybersecurity, machine learning, and distributed systems research.

Sub-awardees contribute essential infrastructure and operational support to the project. Crown Castle Fiber LLC provides 100G fiber optic connectivity between colocation facilities in Boca Raton and Miami, Florida, with advanced quarterly monitoring and data reporting. Florida LambdaRail LLC supplies two dedicated 100G wavelengths with planned upgrades to 400G capacity, network engineering resources (0.5 full-time equivalent annually), and equipment management services. Angola Cables maintains submarine cable infrastructure on the Monet system connecting the United States to Brazil and Angola through 2032. Vanderbilt University supplies project management and international coordination support through Dr. Donald Cox (2.47 calendar months annually), while the University of Southern California provides application community engagement through Dr. Heidi Morgan (2.33 calendar months annually) to document network utilization and forecast demand. These integrated services and infrastructure investments enable transformational research outcomes while advancing open-source tools, machine learning datasets, and operational telemetry for the broader research community.

Abstract

The amlight: the next frontier towards discovery in the americas and africa project continues its mission to maintain a purpose-built international network infrastructure to support the vera rubin observatory and U.S. Astronomy projects, major facilities, scientific workflows, network testbeds, and the r & e communities in the U.S., latin america, and africa by maintaining critical long-haul connectivity, colocation, and software services that directly support U.S.-led global science initiatives. The project enhances the network operation and automation to guarantee new levels of observability, programmability, integration with science workflows and testbeds, and data transfer performance. Research contributions include new models for predictive fault detection, telemetry-driven automation, smart network interface-based monitoring, and multi-domain orchestration. These innovations serve as live, reproducible platforms for computer networking, cybersecurity, machine learning, and distributed systems research. The project enables transformational science and education by supporting long-term data-intensive workflows across latin america and africa, directly benefiting U.S. Access to globally distributed facilities, such as the vera rubin observatory, U.S. Astronomy projects, the large hadron collider, and environmental sensing. The project contributes open-source tools; findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable datasets for machine learning and cybersecurity research; and operational telemetry used by national laboratories and academic researchers. By sharing large-scale telemetry data, automation frameworks, and experimental platforms, the project enables broader engagement in reproducible research and infrastructure science. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.