ARCADIA—Agentic Robotics and Curated AI Data for Intelligent Autonomy—is Pacific Northwest National Laboratory’s (PNNL’s) platform for accelerated scientific discovery, serving as the connective tissue that unites data, AI agents, and robotics into a unified discovery ecosystem. It is the product of PNNL’s Foundational Autonomy Investment. 

Built to accelerate the science-to-impact timeline from decades to days, ARCADIA transforms how research happens by enabling scientific workflows that plan, execute, analyze, learn, and adapt with the appropriate level of human oversight. 

It is more than software, more than hardware, and more than algorithms—it is the orchestrated fusion of all three, designed to be modular, reusable, and scalable across scientific domains. With ARCADIA, a researcher’s idea can flow seamlessly from hypothesis to discovery, accelerating the pace of innovation across chemistry, biology, materials science, and beyond.

AI-Ready Data Architecture: Information in Motion

At the heart of ARCADIA is an AI-ready data lakehouse engineered to keep information moving fluidly, automatically, and at scale. 

Researchers initiate workflows from anywhere, and ARCADIA routes their intent through AI agents that translate ideas into action, dispatch instructions to robotic systems, and orchestrate instruments to generate data. 

Results stream back through automated curation pipelines that capture provenance, maintain version control, and preserve the full lineage of every experiment. This bidirectional flow—from human to agent to robot to instrument and back again—ensures that every measurement, decision, and outcome is captured, contextualized, and immediately available to fuel the next discovery. 

Every experimental outcome becomes part of an integrated scientific knowledge ecosystem, where data, analysis, and scientific knowledge accumulate over time to inform future decisions and accelerate discovery.

The result is a living, learning data ecosystem where information never sits idle.

Agents That Think, Plan, and Adapt

ARCADIA deploys a library of modular AI agents that act as tireless scientific collaborators across the entire research life cycle. 

Science assistant agents generate hypotheses, check novelty, and convert research ideas into rigorous experimental designs informed by available instruments, materials, and prior data. 

Experiment execution agents translate those designs into precise instructions for robotic liquid handlers, spectrometers, and plate readers, coordinating multiple instruments through standardized protocols. 

Adaptive control agents monitor live data streams and adjust experimental conditions in real time, tuning bioreactor parameters or modifying synthesis conditions on the fly.

Finally, data analysis agents interpret results, refine conditions through machine learning, and feed insights back into the next round of experiments. 

Together, these agents help create an integrated learning environment where data, experiments, simulations, and scientific reasoning continuously inform one another, enabling faster and more informed decision-making over time.

Robotics That Bring Experiments to Life

ARCADIA turns digital plans into physical discovery through an integrated robotics ecosystem that conducts experiments at speeds and scales no human team could match.

Robotics platforms for liquid handling such as the OpenTrons and Tecan Fluent execute high-throughput batches with precision, while robotic arms shuttle samples between synthesis stations, spectroscopy suites, centrifuges, and mass spectrometers. 

In-line characterization tools, such as UV-vis plate readers and Raman spectrometers, provide real-time feedback that closes the loop between action and analysis. 

Whether recovering critical materials from complex feedstocks or optimizing engineered microbes to produce industrially valuable molecules, ARCADIA's robotics transform the laboratory into a continuously running, integrated discovery platform—one where science happens around the clock, and every experiment contributes to a growing body of scientific knowledge that helps guide future discovery.

ARCADIA is evolving from an emerging capability into a foundational platform for autonomous science across PNNL.

We are building ARCADIA from the ground up with researcher needs in mind. 

ARCADIA is more than a software platform. It is an integrated ecosystem that brings together AI, robotics, data, simulation, and scientific expertise to accelerate discovery.

ARCADIA connects experimentation, analysis, reasoning, and adaptation into a unified ecosystem that accelerates the path from hypothesis to impact.

ARCADIA represents PNNL’s long-term vision for autonomous science, providing a scalable foundation for integrating AI, robotics, intelligent data systems, and scientific expertise across the laboratory.