Zuckerberg’s Big Biotech Moment

AI Summary

The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative's Biohub is partnering with the National Institutes of Health and the Department of Energy on a $1.8 billion effort to develop AI-powered biology technologies and scientific infrastructure. Meta, Google DeepMind, and Isomorphic Labs have also committed a combined $300 million, building on Biohub's earlier $500 million Virtual Biology Initiative.

• The Big Read: Meet Zach Frankel, the secretive investor behind Cognition, Ramp • Why techies are hoarding AI compute in their homes • Plus, Recommendations—our weekly pop culture picks: “Bram Stoker’s Dracula,” “The AGI Chronicles” and “Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother” Mark Zuckerberg, the founder and CEO of Meta Platforms, was only six years old in 1990, the year the Human Genome Project got launched. That project, a multibillion-dollar international effort led by the National Institutes of Health and the Department of Energy, resulted in the announcement 10 years later of an awe-inspiring milestone: the first sequencing of the human genetic code—the building blocks of life. When President Bill Clinton described the achievement in 2000, he framed it in grand terms: “We are learning the language in which God created life.” So it was intriguing to hear another scientific collaboration compared to that earlier achievement at a reception this week hosted by Biohub, the primary philanthropic effort of Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan. The event this week is one of a number of recent moments that herald a changing of the scientific guard from major universities to big tech companies.   Speaking at the Treehouse Hotel in Sunnyvale, Calif., Zuckerberg told the gathering of around 100 tech executives, scientists and academics that he and Chan had started the first version of what is now called Biohub almost 10 years ago to the day with the goal of trying to cure and prevent all diseases by the end of the century. “We got a lot of eye rolls,” Zuckerberg said. “People thought that was kind of crazy.” Thanks to AI and other advances in technology, he added, “That no longer seems quite so crazy.” He then turned to Lori Goler, president of the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, who announced that Biohub is partnering with the National Institutes of Health and the Department of Energy in a $1.8 billion investment to create new technologies and build the scientific infrastructure required to drive “AI-powered biology.”  Biohub, which launched what it calls the “Virtual Biology Initiative” in April with a $500 million commitment, also said at the event that Meta, Google DeepMind and Isomorphic Labs, a company spun off of DeepMind, have agreed to kick in $300 million. “We were inspired by the Human Genome Project,” Goler told the group. Goler added that they hope the initiative “will have the same level of impact and will be as important as the Human Genome Project has been.” (Anyone going to The Information’s WTF Summit later this month will hear more from Goler on the future of AI biology.) Despite the evening’s focus on collaboration, science can be an isolating discipline in its daily practice. When I visit labs, I am always amazed by how quiet they are. The scientists are usually intently concentrating on not making a false step that could lead to the contamination of an experiment. And yet, once the results leave the lab and reach the public, clamor often ensues. Controversial findings spark debate over ethical and moral questions. Transformative discoveries are celebrated with an element of pageantry and recognition. Both are reminders of our common humanity—and that the ultimate goal of science is to make all our lives better. This leads to invitations to the White House like the one that happened back in 2000 with the scientists at the helm of the Human Genome Project. Or even more personal celebratory videos like the ones posted on social media all this week by happy scientists who received early morning calls from Sweden learning they had won Nobel Prizes. (How can you not be moved by this video of the Stanford neuroscientist Karl Deisseroth telling his kids he won the Nobel Prize for medicine?) Zuckerberg is one of the most prominent symbols of how AI is altering the scientific landscape and bringing new leaders into an arena once dominated by major universities.  He was appointed by President Trump in March to be a member of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology. He is joined there by other high-profile Silicon Valley names, including Google’s Sergey Brin, Oracle’s Larry Ellison and Nvidia’s Jensen Huang. Of the 13 people now on the council, only one is an academic researcher. Two other signs this week reflect the change. On Oct. 8, Brin and Huang, alongside other tech notables, received the National Medals of Science from President Trump. The same day, Anthropic said it is expanding its own partnership with the government. It will provide $150 million worth of AI credits and other support for the Genesis Mission launched by Trump last year to use AI to accelerate scientific discoveries. A Biohub team traveled to Washington in July to attend the first Genesis Mission Summit. Plans for the newly announced partnership with the National Institutes of Health and Department of Energy grew out of that visit. So perhaps it’s only fair that the government made its own pilgrimage out to Si