Zuckerberg Biohub and Google back $1.8B AI virtual cell project

Axios reported on October 7, 2026 that Chan Zuckerberg Biohub is partnering with the U.S. Department of Energy, the National Institutes of Health, Google DeepMind, Isomorphic Labs and Meta to build a universal virtual cell using AI. The multi party effort pools about $1.8 billion in funding, data, compute and measurement technology, including more than $500 million from DOE, over $500 million in NIH backed datasets, $300 million from Google DeepMind and Isomorphic Labs plus Meta, and an earlier $500 million Biohub commitment.