Gates Foundation commits at least $1 billion to AI for health care, schools and farms, and education experts question the classroom share
The foundation announced the two-year commitment on Sept. 14 with its 10th Goalkeepers Report. About $400 million is for education, including AI tutoring in U.S. classrooms. The money goes to partners already doing the work, and no application process was announced.
Seattle. The Gates Foundation said on Sept. 14 that it will spend at least $1 billion over the next two years to widen access to artificial intelligence, in the United States and abroad. The Seattle foundation announced the commitment with its 10th annual Goalkeepers Report, which argues that AI could narrow the gap between the richest and poorest people or widen it, and that the window to shape who benefits is short.
The money will be split roughly as follows, the foundation said: 40% for education, including AI tutoring and teaching tools for U.S. classrooms and schools abroad; 40% for health care, from support for frontline health workers to drug and vaccine discovery; 10% for agriculture, such as advice for smallholder farmers; and 10% for the digital foundation the tools rely on, including datasets in languages AI does not yet understand.
Who receives it
The announcement names no open call or application process. The money will support partners already working to close gaps in access to AI and scale up their work over the two years, the foundation said. Its grant opportunities page says it awards most of its grants to U.S. 501(c)(3) organizations and other tax-exempt organizations identified by its staff.
“The Gates Foundation was created in part to address a basic market failure: the people with the greatest needs often have the least power to shape where innovation and investment go.”
Questions about the classroom share
The education share, about $400 million, drew questions. Sarah Reckhow, a political science professor at Michigan State University, told the Chronicle of Philanthropy that the foundation had not spelled out who will evaluate the tools. She pointed to two earlier Gates school initiatives: one on measuring teacher effectiveness, which a 2018 evaluation found largely fell short of its goals, and one to create smaller high schools, which the foundation scaled back. The foundation declined to comment on the record to the Chronicle.
Teachers and others told Fortune that schools need time and training to use the tools well. Amy McBride, who teaches at a special education school in Pasco County, Fla., said handing a school an AI tool does not mean its teachers suddenly have the time, training or support to use it. Dora Palfi, chief executive of the education technology company Imagi, said the districts moving fastest are best placed to use the money, which could end up widening the divide it is meant to close.
A foundation spokesperson told Fortune that the tools will be tested in schools serving high shares of low-income students, paired with teacher training and evaluated by independent researchers before being scaled, and that success will be measured by whether students who have fallen behind catch up.
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