The U.S. government, Meta Platforms and Google parent Alphabet are joining nonprofit Biohub in a $1.8 billion initiative to build open datasets for training artificial intelligence models for biological research. Meta, Google DeepMind and drug discovery startup Isomorphic Labs are jointly investing $300 million, while the U.S. Department of Energy will contribute more than $500 million over five years toward laboratory measurement, modeling and computing. The National Institutes of Health will also coordinate datasets developed through more than $500 million in earlier federal funding.
The funding will support Biohub’s Virtual Biology Initiative, which aims to generate large-scale data on how cells respond to different conditions and use it to develop predictive AI models. Biohub, backed by Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan, invested $500 million in the project in April. The initiative will use technologies including spatial transcriptomics and cellular screening, with the goal of expanding datasets from hundreds of millions of cells today to billions and eventually trillions.
Biohub said the datasets will ultimately be made publicly available, although commercial funders will receive temporary early access. The organization aims to produce its first dataset within about a year and develop accurate predictive models within five years, potentially shortening drug development timelines that currently take years. The initiative comes as other AI companies, including Anthropic and OpenAI, expand efforts to build biological datasets and AI-driven drug discovery capabilities.
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