When a few days ago the nominations began to occupy the main positions of the new United States government, there was a name that captured the attention of a part of the Spanish scientific and technological sector. Darío Gil, born in Spain 49 years agohe was chosen by Donald Trump to be the Undersecretary of Science and Innovation of the Department of Energy.
His appointment has placed him in a position of great responsibility in the Executive, since Gil will take care of the supervision and management of everything related to research, science and technology in the Trump administration. Among its fields of action will be research in fields such as artificial intelligence and quantum computing. It will also deal with energy innovation, both fossil and nuclear and renewable. Therefore, your work will be very prominent when development of advanced technologies for different areas.
Born in Murcia in 1975, Darío Gil subsequently moved to Madrid with his family, although he soon made the leap to the United States, since he already studied high school. He did it in California, and then moved to the other side of the country to study electrical and computer engineering at the Stevens Institute of Technology, located in New Jersey. After his studies, he deepened what has been learned at MIT, where he expanded his training in the field of nanotechnology, to later obtain a doctorate.
With such a brilliant curriculum, Darío Gil had no major problems to start a successful work career in the field of technological research. Specifically, in IBM, where he has become a senior vice president of the company, and research director of his division dedicated to research, IBM Research.
Gil became part of IBM in the summer of 2003, and since then until now he has participated in numerous R&D tasks, in addition to leading, already as a company manager, projects of great importance within advanced computing, such as the Construction of the first programmable quantum computer in the cloud.
Spanish was not exactly a stranger to Donald Trump, since during the first stage of his presidency He was a member of the Presidential Council of Science and Technology Advisors (PCAST) of the US government. As such, he was in charge of advice to the administration in areas related to quantum computing, one of its most experienced areas, as well as in AI and semiconductors.
Out of his advice work, Darío Gil is also One of the presidents of the Mit- IBM Watson Ia Laboratorydedicated to basic research in artificial intelligence. Apart from that, the Board of Directors of the International Science Reserve, a network of open scientific communities to offer resources to prepare and address complex and urgent challenges in scientific matters.
Gil also part of the Presidency of the Research Council of the Institute of Advanced Research (CIFFAR), of the Advisory Council of the Rector of the MIT School of Engineering and the Global Cybersecurity Group of Aspen. He is also a member of the National Academy of Engineering of the United States. He was also president of the National Board of Science of the United States, the supervisory entity of the National Foundation of Science (NSF).
Now he has a complex challenge before him, since as Darío Gil himself has recognized in a post on LinkedIn, «This office is the greatest federal sponsor of basic research in physical sciences, and through its world leading national laboratories, addresses some of the most aspirational and inspiring challenges that we pursue as a nation. The prosperity and security of the United States depends on our leadership in energy, science and technology, and this team will continue to offer advances that will make us all proud in the next decades in the next decades«.
