Google.org commits $20M to researchers using AI for scientific breakthroughs

Google is committing $20 million in cash and $2 million in cloud credits to a new funding initiative designed to help scientists and researchers unearth the next great scientific breakthroughs using artificial intelligence (AI).

The announcement, made by Google DeepMind co-founder and CEO Demis Hassabis during a fireside chat at the closed-door AI for Science Forum in London today, feeds into a broader push by Big Tech to curry favor with young innovators and startups, a strategy that has included acqui-hires, equity investments, and cloud partnerships — some of which has attracted the attentions of regulators.

This latest announcement, via Google’s 19-year-old philanthropic arm Google.org, is different in that it centers on non-equity funding for academic and non-for-profit institutions globally. But similar to other Big Tech funding and partnership initiatives, this will go some way toward helping Google ingratiate itself with some of the leading scientific minds, through direct cash injections and by providing infrastructure to power their projects. In turn, this positions Google well to acquire future customers — particularly those currently on the cusp of doing great things, working on projects that require significant AI tooling and compute, which Google can provide.

Google isn’t alone in this approach — just last week, Amazon’s cloud leader AWS announced $110 million in grants and credits to lure AI researchers into its own ecosystem. Elsewhere, Google itself has made other similar commitments in the AI sphere of late, including a $20 million fund to support think tanks and academic institutions building out their AI expertise, and a similar-size fund to run a generative AI accelerator program for nonprofits.

Addressing complex problems

The one thing winning applicants should have in common is that they will be using “AI to address increasingly complex problems at the intersections of different disciplines of science,” according to an accompanying blog post from Maggie Johnson, Google VP and global head of Google.org,

“Fields such as rare and neglected disease research, experimental biology, materials science and sustainability all show promise,” Johnson wrote.

In response to some follow-up questions from TechCrunch, a Google spokesperson said that they don’t have a set target in terms of the number of projects they’re looking to finance. However, they stressed that they want the funding to be “significant enough to fuel scientific breakthroughs” — this means it’s not looking to pepper small pockets of cash far and wide. Instead, it’s likely to be dispersed around no more than around 15 organizations, with plans to select the recipients and give out the funding by 2026.

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It’s worth noting that it has been a big year for Google’s AI unit DeepMind itself. Hassabis, one of DeepMind’s three founders, was awarded a knighthood for services to AI back in March. Then in October, Hassabis and DeepMind director John Jumper (pictured together above) scooped one half of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for their work on AlphaFold, which has helped accelerate research around drug discovery, diagnosing diseases, and bioengineering.

This newest fund essentially seeks to build off that momentum.

“I believe artificial intelligence will help scientists and researchers achieve some of the greatest breakthroughs of our time,” Hassabis said in a stock statement issued to TechCrunch. “We hope the launch of our $20 million fund will help encourage further collaboration between the private and public sectors, kick-start renewed excitement for the power of AI and science, and inspire others to join us in funding this important work.”

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