Zuckerberg, Chan shift bulk of philanthropy to science, focusing on AI and biology to curb disease

Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan Pivot Philanthropy to Focus on AI-Powered Scientific Research

In a significant shift of philanthropic priorities, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Dr. Priscilla Chan announced they will direct the bulk of their charitable resources toward Biohub, their science organization focused on leveraging artificial intelligence to accelerate scientific discovery.

“I feel like the science work that we’ve done, the Biohub model in particular, has been the most impactful thing that we have done. So we want to really double down on that,” Zuckerberg said at an event Wednesday at the Biohub Imaging Institute in Redwood City, California.

The couple’s announcement represents a narrowing of focus for their philanthropy, which previously included funding for underprivileged schools, immigration reform, and diversity initiatives. Their ambitious goal remains addressing major health challenges – to “cure, prevent or manage all disease” – if not in their lifetime, then in their children’s.

Since launching Biohub in 2016, Chan and Zuckerberg have donated $4 billion to basic science research, a figure that doesn’t include operational expenses for running large-scale computing infrastructure dedicated to life science research. The organization is now on track to double that amount over the next decade, with an operating budget of approximately $1 billion annually.

The couple has pledged 99% of their lifetime wealth – derived from Zuckerberg’s Meta shares – toward these efforts. The funding will support Biohub’s four institutes in New York, San Francisco, Chicago, and Redwood City, each addressing different scientific challenges.

This pivot comes at a time when the Trump administration has cut billions from scientific research and public health funding, potentially creating a vacuum in America’s research landscape that private philanthropy may increasingly need to fill.

The refocused Biohub will concentrate on developing virtual AI-based cell models to understand how cells function in the human body, studying inflammation, and using artificial intelligence to leverage the immune system for disease detection, prevention, and treatment.

“Until now, that kind of understanding has been out of reach. AI is changing that. For the first time, we have the potential to model and predict the biology of disease in ways that can reveal what’s gone wrong and how we can develop new treatments to address it,” Chan said.

As part of this initiative, Biohub has acquired EvolutionaryScale, an AI research lab specializing in large-scale AI systems for life sciences. Alex Rives, EvolutionaryScale’s co-founder, will serve as Biohub’s head of science, leading research efforts on experimental biology, data, and artificial intelligence.

Biohub’s ambitious goal is to create virtual cell systems that mimic human physiology at all levels – molecular, cellular, and genomic. Similar to how large language models learn from vast text databases, these digital representations would allow scientists to conduct virtual experiments on a scale impossible in physical laboratories. The organization has committed to making these tools open source, ensuring they remain free and publicly available to the scientific community.

The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI), the couple’s charitable organization, has faced criticism for recently curtailing its funding for diversity, equity and inclusion programs, immigration advocacy, and other social issues currently targeted by the Trump administration. Earlier this year, CZI removed references to DEI from its website, including language acknowledging how science has historically been “deployed as a tool of oppression” against marginalized communities.

The couple maintains that their shift toward science funding has been underway for years, predating the 2024 election. “Going forward, Biohub will be our primary philanthropic effort and where we’ll dedicate the vast majority of our resources,” they stated in a blog post Thursday. “We will continue our other philanthropic efforts as well, but the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative will serve as infrastructure and support for our initiatives.”

Last week, at an event attended by Chan and Zuckerberg, singer Billie Eilish made headlines by calling on billionaires to donate more of their wealth. “If you’re a billionaire, why are you a billionaire? And no hate, but give your money away, shorties,” she said to a smattering of applause.

For Chan, who worked as a pediatrician treating children with rare diseases, the mission is deeply personal. She highlighted some of Biohub’s accomplishments to date, including building the largest single-cell data set, contributing to major human cell mapping efforts, developing sensors to measure inflammation in real-time in living cells, and researching rare diseases.

“We have cured diseases for mice and for flies and for zebrafish, many, many times. And that’s great. But we want to make sure that we are actually using biology to push the forefront of medicine for people – and that is so promising,” Chan said.