Ankara:Mark Zuckerberg-backed Biohub is collaborating with Google, Meta, and the US government on a $1.8 billion initiative to generate biological data for artificial intelligence models.

According to Anadolu Agency, Biohub announced that the US Energy Department (DOE) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) will join its Virtual Biology Initiative, alongside partners Google DeepMind, Isomorphic Labs, and Meta.

The project aims to generate and standardize large volumes of biological data needed to create predictive models of cells. Google DeepMind, AI drug discovery company Isomorphic Labs, and Meta will collectively invest $300 million in the initiative. The DOE will provide more than $500 million over five years for biological measurement, modeling, and computing.

The NIH will contribute datasets and resources developed through previous federal investments exceeding $500 million, with Biohub working to standardize the information for AI training.

Biohub, a nonprofit research organization co-founded by Zuckerberg and his wife, physician Priscilla Chan, launched the five-year Virtual Biology Initiative in April with a $500 million commitment.

The initiative seeks to develop AI models capable of predicting cellular behavior and responses to interventions like drugs or genetic changes, enabling digital experimentation before physical trials.

Alex Rives, Biohub's head of science, stated that an accurate predictive model of biology could greatly accelerate scientific discovery by allowing digital experiments.

Biohub plans to make the resulting datasets available to the wider scientific community. Commercial partners will have a one-year exclusive access period to data they fund, while government-funded data will not have such restrictions.