Fraud implies intent, either intent to deceive or intentionally negligent.

If you're taking public funds (directly or otherwise) with the intent to either:

A) Do little to no real work, and pass of the work of an AI as being your own work, or

B) Knowingly publish falsified data

Then you are, without a single shred of doubt, in criminal fraud territory. Further, the structural damage you inflict when you do the above is orders of magnitude greater than the initial fraud itself. That is a matter for civil courts ("Our company based on development on X fraudulent data, it cost us Y in damages").

Whether or not charges are pressed is going to happen way after all the internal reviews have demonstrated the person being charged has gone beyond the "honest mistake" threshold. It's like Walmart not bothering to call the cops until you're into felony territory, there's no point in doing so.