The emergence of hydrogen and fuel cell technologies offers the nation important and potentially transformative cross-sectoral economic, environmental and energy security benefits that are being explored through the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) H2@scale initiative. Through H2@Scale, DOE is partnering with more than twenty companies as well as America’s national laboratories to realize hydrogen as a flexible, scalable, nationwide energy carrier, complementing the electric grid in service of major energy, industry and transportation sectors. In recent years, early-stage research and development supported by DOE’s Fuel Cell Technologies Office has contributed substantially to the advancement of important hydrogen and fuel cell technologies which are critical to the H2@Scale vision. One example has been the research efforts to develop multiple pathways for large-scale hydrogen production from diverse domestic resources through the HydroGEN Consortium on Advanced Water Splitting Materials, which is part of the DOE Energy Materials Network. HydroGEN research efforts leverage state-of-the-art methods in theory, computation, experimentation, analysis, and data informatics in the discovery and development of efficient and durable materials for hydrogen production through innovative electrochemical, solar-thermochemical and solar-photoelectrochemical pathways. Recent HydroGEN activities and progress in areas of electrochemical water splitting will be described and discussed in the context of H2@Scale.