Billionaire philanthropists Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan are steering the bulk of their charitable work toward science and technology, placing their research network Biohub at the center of their efforts to harness artificial intelligence in the fight against disease.
The couple, who co-founded the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI), said Thursday that while the group will continue supporting education, immigration reform and social-justice programs, Biohub will become their primary philanthropic focus.
Their strategy hinges on using AI to create virtual models of human cells and systems — a move they say could turbo-charge scientific discovery and bring the goal of curing or managing all disease into reach much sooner.
Biohub recently hired the team from the AI research lab EvolutionaryScale, and named its co-founder as head of science — a signal of the organization’s pivot to “AI-powered biology.”
Since its inception in 2016, Biohub has received more than $4 billion from Zuckerberg and Chan, with plans to grow that commitment significantly in the coming decade.
The move aligns with a broader shift in global philanthropy away from traditional social programs and toward “frontier” science and technology. Zuckerberg and Chan say they believe the greatest potential for impact lies in rethinking how research is done — and they now consider that game-changing tools will come from AI–biology hybrids rather than incremental reform.