Mark Zuckerberg Teams Up with Demis Hassabis: $1.8 Billion to Develop 'Virtual Cells'

Beating AI News Flash: The Chan Zuckerberg Biohub, the biomedical research institute founded by Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, announced an expansion of its Virtual Biology Initiative (VBI). Google DeepMind, Meta, and Isomorphic Labs have joined the collaboration, with total funding, data, and research resources from all parties amounting to $1.8 billion. Isomorphic Labs is the AI drug discovery firm established by Demis Hassabis. The initiative aims to train AI to predict the behavior of living cells—for example, when a drug is applied to a cell, AI can forecast the changes that will occur. Researchers will then be able to conduct preliminary tests on computers to decide which experiments are worth carrying out in labs, accelerating new drug development. The biggest current challenge is the lack of training data. Biohub said existing large datasets only have records of hundreds of millions of cells, while accurate predictive models may need billions or even trillions of cells. The team expects to release the first batch of data in about a year, and aims to develop reliable predictive models within five years. Google DeepMind, Meta, and Isomorphic Labs collectively contribute $300 million. The U.S. Department of Energy plans to invest over $500 million over five years, and the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) provides data resources accumulated from its prior investments of more than $500 million. The data will eventually be open to researchers worldwide. However, commercial funders can exclusively use data generated from their contributions for one year before making it public; government-funded data is not subject to this restriction.