Biohub partners with NIH, DOE in $1.8B push for AI-powered biology
Biohub, the philanthropic effort of Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan, announced a partnership with the National Institutes of Health and the Department of Energy in a $1.8 billion investment to build technologies and scientific infrastructure for "AI-powered biology." Biohub, which launched its Virtual Biology Initiative in April with a $500 million commitment, said Meta, Google DeepMind and DeepMind spin-off Isomorphic Labs have agreed to contribute $300 million. Zuckerberg said AI and other advances mean the goal of curing and preventing all diseases by the end of the century "no longer seems quite so crazy," while Chan Zuckerberg Initiative president Lori Goler said they hope the effort matches the Human Genome Project's impact; the article also notes Anthropic is providing $150 million in AI credits for the government's Genesis Mission.
It marks a high-dollar alliance between big-tech philanthropy and federal science agencies around AI-driven biology, and illustrates how scientific leadership is shifting from universities toward tech companies.