A charitable foundation backed by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan, has announced the acquisition of a Canadian artificial intelligence startup as part of its mission to help eradicate disease.
The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI) confirmed that it has purchased Toronto-based Meta, an AI company that uses machine learning to quickly read and analyse scientific papers, offering valuable insights to researchers. The financial details of the deal were not disclosed.
According to CZI, Meta’s capabilities will be integrated into a tool that will be made freely available to scientists worldwide. “We are very excited about what lies ahead,” said Meta co-founder and chief executive Sam Molyneux in a statement.
Zuckerberg and Chan pledged $3 billion in September to support research aimed at curing, preventing or managing all diseases within the next decade. The couple’s philanthropic entity, founded in 2015, seeks to use technology and collaboration to advance scientific discovery.
Using AI to accelerate scientific discovery
“This is a big goal,” Zuckerberg said at a San Francisco event announcing the effort. “We spent the last few years speaking with experts who believe it’s possible, so we dug in.”
In the field of biomedicine alone, thousands of research papers are published every day, according to Cori Bargmann, president of science at the initiative, and Brian Pinkerton, its chief technology officer.
They explained in a post on the organisation’s Facebook page that Meta’s artificial intelligence technology can analyse insights across millions of papers, uncovering patterns and connections at a scale and speed that humans could not achieve on their own.
“Meta will help scientists learn from others’ discoveries in real time, identify key papers that may have gone unnoticed and even predict where their field is heading,” Bargmann and Pinkerton said. “The potential for this kind of platform is virtually limitless.”
Zuckerberg’s growing interest in AI
The announcement follows Zuckerberg’s growing fascination with artificial intelligence. The Facebook chief revealed last year that he had built an AI-powered personal assistant named Jarvis, inspired by the “Iron Man” films.
Developed over the course of about 100 hours, Jarvis acts as a virtual assistant to help manage household tasks.
It is not a physical robot but an application accessible through Zuckerberg’s phone or computer, allowing him to control lighting, temperature, music, security systems and other connected devices.
Editor’s note: This article has been updated with a new image for clarity.
