Zuckerberg- and Chan-backed Biohub commits $500 million to open data for AI cell models

On 29 April 2026 Biohub, the biomedical research organisation funded by Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan through the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, launched what it calls the Virtual Biology Initiative: a five-year, $500 million programme to produce the data needed to build predictive computer models of living cells.

The idea behind a 'virtual cell' is that an AI model, trained on enough measurements, could forecast how a cell will respond to a mutation, a drug or a disease, letting researchers test ideas on a computer before running costly experiments. Biohub's head of science, Alex Rives, has said that today's datasets cover roughly a billion cells and that the field needs far more before such models become truly useful. Most of what happens inside cells has simply never been measured.

Of the $500 million, Biohub said $400 million will go to its own large-scale data generation and to new tools for measuring, imaging and engineering biology, including advanced microscopy. The remaining $100 million will fund outside laboratories to seed a coordinated, worldwide data effort. Launch partners include the Allen Institute, Arc Institute, Broad Institute and Wellcome Sanger Institute, with the Human Cell Atlas and Human Protein Atlas consortia helping to coordinate, NVIDIA as a technology partner and Renaissance Philanthropy helping to attract more funding. Biohub says the data it generates will be made openly available to scientists everywhere.

Chan, Biohub's co-founder, argued in a TIME essay the same week that a large public dataset of cell types and states is the missing ingredient for AI in biology, noting how many rare childhood diseases still lack any cure. The launch follows Zuckerberg and Chan's decision earlier in 2026 to concentrate their philanthropy on Biohub and AI-driven science, in pursuit of their long-stated goal of helping to cure, prevent or manage all disease this century.