U.S. agencies commit $1.8B to build AI-ready biological datasets

The Department of Energy, National Institutes of Health, Biohub and partner organizations have announced a $1.8 billion commitment to generate open and standardized biological datasets designed specifically for training AI models. The initiative aims to create data that can help machine learning systems predict how cells respond to various interventions.

The move addresses a key barrier to advancing AI in life sciences: the lack of consistent, large-scale datasets that researchers can freely access. By standardizing data collection and making it openly available, the partnership expects to accelerate the development of AI tools that could improve drug discovery, disease modeling, and cellular research across the field.