Redwood City, California – November 8, 2025 – In a sweeping overhaul of their decade-old philanthropic empire, Meta Platforms co-founder Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Dr. Priscilla Chan, announced Thursday a bold redirection of the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI) toward artificial intelligence-powered biological research. The move, detailed in a joint letter and public event at the Biohub Imaging Institute, positions CZI's scientific arm, Biohub, as the centerpiece of an ambitious effort to "cure, prevent, or manage all diseases" by integrating frontier AI with cutting-edge biology. Zuckerberg, speaking to a crowd of researchers and AI experts, emphasized the initiative's potential to create "virtual cells and virtual immune systems" using massive datasets and computational power, marking a significant narrowing of the organization's once-broad mission that included education, housing, and community advocacy.
The announcement comes at a pivotal moment for Zuckerberg, whose personal fortune—tied to Meta's soaring stock—has ballooned to over $200 billion, fueling CZI's operations since its 2015 launch. Back then, the couple pledged 99% of their Meta shares to tackle "social problems from curing or preventing disease to improving education and addressing the needs of local communities." Over the past decade, CZI has disbursed nearly $7 billion in grants and investments, supporting everything from single-cell mapping projects to immigration reform and racial equity programs. But recent shifts, influenced by a changing political and regulatory landscape under President Donald Trump's second administration, have seen CZI retreat from diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives and social advocacy, redirecting resources toward what Zuckerberg described as "something that wasn’t going to be undone every few years."
At the heart of the new strategy is Biohub, a network of research centers launched in 2016 that has already contributed to landmark achievements, including the world's largest single-cell dataset and real-time inflammation sensors for living cells. Thursday's reveal elevates Biohub as CZI's primary vehicle for philanthropy, with plans to expand its computing infrastructure tenfold by 2028. This includes deploying large-scale computer clusters to process the "largest human cell datasets" and developing AI tools like a virtual cell mapping platform and a large language model for biological reasoning. "We are bringing together leading AI researchers, scientists, massive computer clusters, and the largest human cell data sets to create virtual cells and virtual immune systems to help advance science," Zuckerberg stated during the event, underscoring the initiative's goal to simulate biological processes digitally for faster drug discovery and personalized therapies.
A key component is the acquisition of EvolutionaryScale, an AI startup specializing in life sciences models. The deal brings EvolutionaryScale's 50-person team under Biohub's umbrella, with co-founder Alex Rives appointed as head of science to lead efforts in experimental biology, data analysis, and AI integration. Rives, a pioneer in applying language modeling to biology, will oversee four grand challenges: reprogramming the immune system for early disease detection, accelerating drug development, and harnessing AI to predict biological failures. Chan, a pediatrician and CZI co-CEO, highlighted Biohub's origins—launched around the birth of their first child—as a personal motivation, noting its evolution from basic research to AI-driven innovation.
This pivot narrows CZI's scope dramatically, sidelining areas like education and community support that once defined its work. Earlier this year, CZI discontinued funding for The Primary School, a tuition-free K-8 institution in East Palo Alto that integrated education and health care for low-income families. Founded by Chan in 2016 with CZI backing, the school received millions annually but announced its closure after the 2025-26 school year due to "lack of funding." Similarly, housing nonprofits in the Bay Area, including those focused on affordability in San Mateo County, have seen grants evaporate, with CZI scrubbing references to economic inclusion from its website. Critics, including affected nonprofit leaders, have decried the cuts as "devastating," arguing they exacerbate inequities in regions already strained by tech-driven gentrification.
The retreat from DEI is particularly stark. In February 2025, CZI disbanded its three-person DEI team and ended its "diverse slate practice" for hiring, citing a "shifting regulatory and legal landscape" under Trump's administration, which has targeted federal DEI programs. By May, the organization halted all funding for programs "associated with DEI," including science diversity awards and Bay Area partners in racial equity and immigration reform. This mirrors actions at Meta, where Zuckerberg scaled back fact-checking and diversity hiring post-Trump's January inauguration, drawing accusations of political pragmatism. Internal emails revealed staff concerns that CZI's independence from Meta was illusory, with one former employee telling The Guardian the changes felt like "gutting" progressive commitments.
Zuckerberg's philanthropy realignment coincides with aggressive moves at Meta to dominate AI infrastructure. On Friday, the company unveiled plans to invest at least $600 billion in U.S. infrastructure over the next three years, primarily for AI data centers that will underpin tools like the open-source Llama models. "By building in the US, we’re not only advancing AI technology and infrastructure, but also creating jobs, supporting local economies, and reinforcing America’s technological leadership," Meta stated in a release, noting the investments will add 15 gigawatts of grid capacity and support over 30,000 skilled trade jobs since 2010. The pledge, which Zuckerberg personally discussed with President Trump, aligns with Meta's forecast of $116 billion to $118 billion in 2025 capital expenditures—up from prior estimates—fueled by AI's "notably larger" demands.
Yet, this expansion follows a sobering October layoff of 600 workers in Meta's AI unit, part of its Superintelligence Labs division. The cuts, targeting legacy teams in research, infrastructure, and product roles, spared high-profile hires in the new TBD Lab but aimed to streamline a "bloated" organization swollen by three years of hiring sprees. Chief AI Officer Alexandr Wang, recruited from Scale AI in a $14.3 billion deal, framed the reductions as enabling "fewer conversations" for faster decisions, though they also trimmed costs amid ballooning AI expenses. The layoffs, affecting around 318 Bay Area employees, underscore the volatile job market in AI, where big tech's billions in investments coexist with workforce churn.
Experts view CZI's Biohub focus as a high-stakes bet on AI's transformative potential in medicine, potentially accelerating discoveries in immunotherapy and rare diseases. However, skeptics warn of ethical pitfalls, including data privacy risks and widened health disparities if AI models overlook diverse populations. As Meta's data centers proliferate— with a new $1.5 billion facility breaking ground in Texas last month—the convergence of Zuckerberg's corporate and philanthropic worlds raises questions about influence and accountability.
For Bay Area nonprofits reeling from CZI's funding freeze, the shift feels like a betrayal of the "inclusive, just, and healthy future" once promised. One housing advocate, speaking anonymously, lamented the loss of multimillion-dollar grants that stabilized shelters amid California's affordability crisis. Meanwhile, Biohub's expansion could inject billions into science, with CZI committing $4 billion to basic research since 2016, excluding operational costs.
Zuckerberg and Chan's letter closed on an optimistic note: "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." Whether this recalibration yields cures or controversies remains to be seen, but it cements AI as the Zuckerbergs' enduring legacy—one that prioritizes silicon over social safety nets.
