META•META•The US government and major technology companies are joining Biohub’s effort to build open datasets for AI biology research, bringing total investment to $1.8 billion. Meta, Google DeepMind and Isomorphic Labs are investing $300 million, and the first dataset is expected in about a year.
The US government, Meta and Google are joining Biohub to build open datasets for training AI models in biological research, bringing total investment in the effort to $1.8 billion. Meta, Google DeepMind and Isomorphic Labs are jointly investing $300 million, while the Department of Energy will invest more than $500 million over five years. The National Institutes of Health will coordinate datasets and repositories developed with more than $500 million in earlier federal funding.
The commitments add to the $500 million Biohub put into the project in April. Its Virtual Biology Initiative aims to measure how cells respond to changes across more conditions and use the data to build predictive models. Biohub says current cell datasets run to hundreds of millions of cells, while accurate predictive models will require billions and eventually trillions.
The datasets will eventually be released publicly, though commercial funders will have embargo periods to work with them first; government-funded work will carry no such restrictions. Biohub aims to complete work that would normally take decades in five years, with a first dataset expected in about a year. Its head of science, Alex Rives, expects accurate predictive models within five years.
