For nearly a decade, Dr. Priscilla Chan and her husband, Mark Zuckerberg, have been prominent figures in American philanthropy, funding everything from underprivileged schools to immigration reform and diversity initiatives. But this week, the billionaire couple announced a sweeping shift: the bulk of their philanthropic resources will now be funneled into Biohub, their science organization, with a singular mission—using artificial intelligence to accelerate scientific discovery and, ultimately, to cure, prevent, or manage all disease.
The announcement, made on November 6, 2025, at the Biohub Imaging Institute in Redwood City, California, marks a pivotal moment for the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI). According to ABC and other outlets, the couple is doubling down on science, pivoting away from the social programs that once defined their charitable legacy. "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. Biohub is going to be the main focus of our philanthropy going forward," Zuckerberg declared during the event, as reported by ABC and BBC.
This is no small commitment. Since Biohub's launch in 2016, Chan and Zuckerberg have donated $4 billion to basic science research, excluding the considerable costs of running a large-scale computer cluster for life sciences. Now, they plan to double that investment over the next decade, with an annual operating budget of about $1 billion. The couple has pledged 99% of their lifetime wealth—primarily Meta Platforms shares—toward these efforts, a figure that could eventually exceed $200 billion, according to BBC and Business Insider.
At the heart of this new chapter is artificial intelligence. Biohub aims to develop virtual, AI-based cell models to understand the inner workings of human biology, study inflammation, and "harness the immune system" for disease detection, prevention, and treatment. The ambition is nothing short of transformative. Chan, a pediatrician who has treated children with rare diseases, explained her motivation: "What I wanted more than anything was a way to see what was happening inside their cells—how genetic mutations were expressed in different cell types and what, exactly, was breaking down. 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."
This week, Biohub announced a major step forward by hiring the team at EvolutionaryScale, an AI research lab renowned for creating large-scale AI systems for life sciences. Alex Rives, EvolutionaryScale's co-founder, will now serve as Biohub's head of science, leading research on experimental biology, data, and artificial intelligence. Financial terms of the deal remain undisclosed, but the partnership signals Biohub's intent to become a central player in AI-driven biomedical research.
The initiative is also investing heavily in computing infrastructure. By 2028, Biohub aims to expand its compute capacity to 10,000 GPUs, enabling researchers to run virtual experiments on a scale impossible in conventional laboratories. As Biohub stated in a press release, "As we make progress on these kinds of systems, we believe it might eventually become possible to achieve decades of discoveries in months. We believe this will come together to unlock frontier medicine."
The organization's four scientific challenges include using AI to reprogram and harness the immune system for early detection, prevention, and treatment of disease. The goal is to build virtual cell systems that serve as digital representations of human physiology at the molecular, cellular, and genomic levels. These open-source models will allow scientists worldwide to conduct virtual experiments, accelerating the pace of discovery and, potentially, revolutionizing medicine.
But the shift to science and AI comes at the expense of CZI's earlier social programs. When the foundation launched in 2015, it was widely associated with efforts to fix education, support affordable housing, and partner with local nonprofits. These programs involved grants, close collaboration with educators, and community development initiatives. Over the past several years, however, many of these efforts have been scaled back or discontinued. In 2023, CZI laid off dozens of employees working in its education segment, ended its education policy grants portfolio, and stopped funding a school for low-income students that Dr. Chan had helped establish. Diversity-focused efforts and several community partnerships have also been phased out as the foundation refines its mission.
This transition hasn't gone unnoticed. At a recent event attended by Chan and Zuckerberg, singer Billie Eilish voiced a sentiment shared by some critics: "Love you all, but there's a few people in here who have a lot more money than me. And if you're a billionaire, why are you a billionaire? And no hate, but give your money away, shorties." The couple has long pledged to give away the vast majority of their wealth, but the narrowing of their focus has drawn both praise and concern.
Some observers see the shift as a pragmatic response to the limitations of social programs, which can be subject to political cycles and administrative changes. As noted by BBC, Zuckerberg believes that investing in science and AI offers the possibility of impact that lasts far longer than policy reforms or short-term public initiatives. Dr. Chan echoed this view, stating that the organization sees the strongest return on investment in scientific and biomedical research. "So we basically looked at the ecosystem of science funding and decided that the place that we can make the biggest impact was on tool development. And specifically working on long-term projects, 10 to 15 years, where the output of them was taking on a biological challenge that would produce a tool that scientists everywhere could use to accelerate the pace of science," Zuckerberg explained.
Nevertheless, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative will continue some grants to education and community groups, but these will now be far smaller in scope. As stated in a recent blog post, "Going forward, Biohub will be our primary philanthropic effort and where we'll dedicate the vast majority of our resources. We will continue our other philanthropic efforts as well, but the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative will serve as infrastructure and support for our initiatives."
For Chan and Zuckerberg, the ultimate measure of success is the impact on patients. "Why do this? It's like, why is a virtual cell important? 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, according to ABC.
As Biohub embarks on this ambitious new chapter, the world will be watching to see if artificial intelligence can indeed deliver on its promise to transform medicine—and whether one couple's philanthropic gamble can change the course of human health for generations to come.
