The recent award to Demis Hassabis and John Jumper of the Nobel Prize (® the Nobel Foundation) in Chemistry, for AlphaFold’s contributions to protein structure prediction, is proof that AI can deliver incredible breakthroughs for scientists. Already, more than 2 million researchers across 190 countries have used AlphaFold to help accelerate the fight against malaria, combat a widespread and deadly parasitic disease and pave the way for new Parkinson’s treatments. And AI is enabling our progress across a range of scientific domains from hydrology to neuro and climate sciences.
But for AI to enable the next generation of scientific breakthroughs, scientists need necessary funding, computing power, cross-domain expertise and access to infrastructure including foundational datasets, like the Protein Data Bank that fueled the work with AlphaFold.
That’s why today, at the inaugural AI for Science Forum hosted by Google DeepMind and the Royal Society, Google.org announced $20 million in funding to support academic and nonprofit organizations around the world that are using AI to address increasingly complex problems at the intersections of different disciplines of science. Fields such as rare and neglected disease research, experimental biology, materials science and sustainability all show promise.
We’ll work with leaders internally across our Google DeepMind, Google Research and other AI-focused teams as well as external experts to identify and announce organizations. We will also provide $2 million in Google Cloud Credits and pro bono technical expertise from Googlers.
This funding builds on the more than $200 million Google.org has provided to organizations using AI to accelerate their scientific work over the last five years, including Materiom building novel plastics; the Women’s Cancer Institute (coordinated by Institut Curie) improving the detection, treatment and understanding of women’s cancer; and Doctors Without Borders helping to stamp out antibiotic resistance.
Time and again, funding, technology and collaboration have come together to drive scientific discovery. We’re hopeful that this new funding helps incubate more Nobel-level achievements that will improve the lives of millions of people — and that other philanthropic, public and private funders join us by investing in long-term, meaningful outcomes that exemplify AI’s ability to enable science at digital speed.
