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The scientific organization Biohub, backed by Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan, partnered this Wednesday with the government of U.S. President Donald Trump, Google, and other institutions to invest $1.8 billion in the development of artificial intelligence (AI) models capable of predicting how human cells function and what effects different diseases and treatments have on them.
The project seeks to create a type of "virtual cell" that allows researchers to conduct experiments digitally and anticipate which interventions might be more effective before testing them in the laboratory, according to a statement from Biohub.
The goal is to "accelerate disease research and the development of new drugs," the same source detailed.
Biohub, which coordinates the initiative, will work with the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to collect and standardize large amounts of biological data that can be used to train these models.
The organization will also develop technologies to measure and interpret cell behavior on a much larger scale than is currently available.
The Department of Energy will contribute more than $500 million over five years for research, measurement, and computing, while the NIH will incorporate biomedical datasets developed with more than $500 million in prior federal investment.
Google DeepMind, Isomorphic Labs, and Meta will jointly contribute another $300 million.
The initiative, called the Virtual Biology Initiative, does not mean that a virtual cell capable of replacing real experiments already exists, but rather that it seeks to build the data, technologies, and models necessary to make it possible.
The organizers hope that these tools will allow for the identification of potential treatments and promising experiments before taking them to the laboratory.
The announcement comes eight days after Zuckerberg participated alongside other top tech executives, including those from Nvidia, Amazon, Microsoft, and Tesla, in a lunch with Trump and other senior officials of his administration at the White House to address the development and safeguards of artificial intelligence.
At that meeting, the business leaders agreed to voluntary safety principles for AI, and Trump advocated for the sector to self-regulate.
[Publicidad]