The ex-CEO of Google, Eric Schmidt, is making a new group that doesn’t make money and wants to solve big science problems, like finding new drugs and materials. He hired two important scientists, Samuel Rodriques and Andrew White, to lead the project.
Samuel Rodriques started a lab for biotechnology at the Francis Crick Institute, and Andrew White is a leader in using AI for chemistry. They want to do things like OpenAI, a group that made the ChatGPT AI.
Eric Schmidt will mostly use his own money to pay for this, but they might need more money later. They’re still planning things out and might change their plans.
Eric Schmidt is known for helping others, like starting Schmidt Futures with his wife Wendy. They support research that can make a big difference. They also gave money to other AI projects, like AI2050 and the AI in Science Postdoctoral Fellowship Program.
Schmidt did important things in the tech industry. He was the boss of Google from 2001 to 2011, and of Alphabet, Google’s parent company, from 2011 to 2015. Then, he was the boss of Alphabet from 2015 to 2017. After that, he helped Alphabet until 2020.
In short, Eric Schmidt wants to use AI to change science by making this new group.