OpenAI Foundation commits $1 billion to tackle AI risks as Altman warns of societal threats

OpenAI Nonprofit Names Leaders, Aims to Spend $1 Billion in 2026

Ask Mark Gurman Anything About Apple Ask Mark Gurman Anything About Apple Ask Mark Gurman Anything About Apple From its latest devices, to an AI comeback and the future after Tim Cook, join the live conversation on Thursday, March 26 at 11 a.m. EDT. From its latest devices, to an AI comeback and the future after Tim Cook, join the live conversation on Thursday, March 26 at 11 a.m. EDT. From its latest devices, to an AI comeback and the future after Tim Cook, join the live conversation on Thursday, March 26 at 11 a.m. EDT. Click to listen Click to listen Click to listen Click to listen OpenAI plans to invest $1 billion in various AI-related causes this year through its nonprofit arm, dramatically increasing its philanthropic efforts months after restructuring as a more conventional for-profit business. The OpenAI Foundation intends to focus its 2026 spending on helping protect society from potential artificial intelligence risks such as biological threats, as well as funding efforts to use AI to aid the life sciences, the nonprofit is set to announce on Tuesday. The investments will come through external grants and programs, the foundation said. The company is making several key hires to help lead the nonprofit. Wojciech Zaremba, an OpenAI co-founder, has been tapped to head the foundation's AI resilience initiatives, centering on the technology's impact on biosecurity and general safety. Jacob Trefethen, who previously worked at Coefficient Giving, will oversee the life sciences effort. Initially, the focus will be on using AI to accelerate research on Alzheimer's, among other diseases. Get the Tech Newsletter bundle. Get the Tech Newsletter bundle. Get the Tech Newsletter bundle. Bloomberg's subscriber-only tech newsletters, and full access to all the articles they feature. Bloomberg's subscriber-only tech newsletters, and full access to all the articles they feature. Bloomberg's subscriber-only tech newsletters, and full access to all the articles they feature. Plus Signed UpPlus Sign UpPlus Sign Up By continuing, I agree to the Privacy Policy and Terms of Service. As part of its corporate restructuring late last year, OpenAI's nonprofit received a 26% equity stake in the San Francisco-based company. At the time of the deal, that stake was worth $130 billion, making the foundation one of the world's most valuable charities on paper. The nonprofit will also get a warrant that lets it receive an undisclosed amount of additional shares in the for-profit entity if the latter's share price grows more than 10-fold after 15 years. The fate of the nonprofit was a key consideration for state regulators reviewing OpenAI's proposed restructuring, given the company was originally founded as a nonprofit research lab more than a decade ago. Among other considerations, the attorneys general of Delaware and California wanted to ensure OpenAI's considerable resources were deployed for the public's benefit. OpenAI previously announced the foundation would commit $25 billion in the coming years to health-care breakthroughs and addressing the potential consequences of AI. While the overhauled nonprofit is starting to take shape, it remains to be seen how adept it will be in rapidly expanding its spending plans. For comparison, OpenAI gave away $7.5 million through its nonprofit in 2024, according to its most recent tax filings. Its single largest gift that year was $1 million to the Meridian Institute's AI Safety Fund, which later announced it was disbanding and laying off its staff. In December, OpenAI's foundation said it was awarding $40.5 million in grants to 208 nonprofits across the US. OpenAI is making several other key hires to help steer the nonprofit. Robert Kaiden, a former Twitter executive, will join the foundation as chief financial officer. OpenAI executive Anna Makanju will head a new division overseeing charitable donations to outside nonprofit groups. The foundation is actively searching for an executive director. The OpenAI Foundation said it's also engaging civil society experts, businesses and economists on AI's impact on jobs and will "deploy substantial resources" toward the "most promising" approaches" in that area. The foundation plans to share more details on that in the coming weeks.

OpenAI Foundation pledges $1B in grants to ensure AI 'benefits all of humanity'

OpenAI Foundation, the nonprofit that controls the artificial intelligence company OpenAI and its flagship product ChatGPT, pledged Tuesday to grant out $1 billion in the next year and to build up its capacity as a philanthropic funder. The pledge represents a major development in OpenAI's philanthropic activities and offers insight into how the company, which started as a nonprofit, plans to carry out its charitable mission to develop AI to benefit "all of humanity." "We aim to enable the use of AI to find solutions to humanity's hardest problems, transform what people are capable of, and deliver real benefits in people's lives -- while working hard with partners to be ready for new challenges, and to help make society resilient, as AI advances," OpenAI said in a statement Tuesday. The new funding will support life science and health research and will seek to mitigate some of the impacts of AI technologies on jobs, the economy and mental health, especially of children, the nonprofit said. It follows a commitment to spend $25 billion to support similar causes that OpenAI Foundation made in October, though without providing a time frame. OpenAI Foundation will also recruit a new executive director to oversee its grantmaking, it said. OpenAI started as a nonprofit research lab in 2015 but has sought to escape that structure over the past several years as it built out its commercial technologies like ChatGPT and its for-profit subsidiary, which is now one of the most highly valued startups in the world. In October, OpenAI finalized an agreement with regulators that left the nonprofit's board in charge of its for-profit business but eased the way for investors and the company to profit from its technologies. The deal also clarified the nonprofit's ownership stake in the company, which OpenAI said at the time was valued at $130 billion, making it one of the best-resourced nonprofits in the country. Since the incorporation of its for-profit business in 2019, OpenAI's nonprofit significantly scaled back its activities, going from listing $51 million in expenses in 2018 to $3.3 million the following year, according to its public tax filings. In 2024, the most recent year that the nonprofit reported its activities to the Internal Revenue Service, OpenAI's nonprofit received $4,433 in contributions and granted out $7.6 million. Brian Mittendorf, a professor of accounting and public affairs at The Ohio State University who specializes in nonprofits, cautioned that the tax forms were not well suited to capture OpenAI's activities and the extent to which they were focused on achieving its charitable mission. "People tend to focus on the financial part of that," said Mittendorf in an email. "Is the immense value creation being used to further a charitable objective? But an equally important piece is whether the product they are developing is serving humanity as they envisioned." In 2025, OpenAI made an effort to revitalize the nonprofit. It convened a temporary nonprofit advisory board to offer it nonbinding guidance about how to structure its philanthropic activities while it continued to negotiate with regulators and its investors about the extent to which the nonprofit board would remain in charge of its business. The advisory board, which included labor leader Dolores Huerta, eventually recommended that OpenAI significantly increase the resources it provided to its nonprofit and to consult extensively with communities about how AI is impacting them as it shapes its grant making. The nonprofit announced $40.5 million in grants to community-based nonprofits in December to support AI literacy, strengthen civic life and foster economic opportunity. OpenAI's new vision for its charitable grantmaking comes at the same time that communities around the country worry about data centers increasing electricity costs, lawsuits accuse AI chatbots of exacerbating mental health crises, and companies and advocates question the fitness of new AI technologies to be used in war. ___ Associated Press coverage of philanthropy and nonprofits receives support through the AP's collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content. For all of AP's philanthropy coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/philanthropy.

The OpenAI Foundation plans to spend at least $1 billion this year

The nonprofit that controls OpenAI has outlined four programme areas, Alzheimer's, jobs, AI resilience, and community, and brought on two senior hires to run the biggest of them. The gap between its charitable history and its new ambitions is the most striking number in their announcement. When OpenAI moved its operational activities into a for-profit subsidiary in 2019, its nonprofit entity effectively went dormant as a grantmaker. IRS tax filings tell the story starkly: the nonprofit listed $51 million in expenses in 2018, the year before the for-profit was incorporated, and $3.3 million in 2019. In the most recent year it reported to the IRS, 2024, OpenAI's nonprofit received $4,433 in contributions and granted out $7.6 million. The announcement from the OpenAI Foundation, the renamed nonprofit that controls the business, is a pivot of considerable magnitude: the Foundation is committing to invest at least $1 billion in the next year across four programme areas. That $1 billion is framed as an early tranche of the $25 billion commitment the Foundation announced last October when OpenAI completed its recapitalisation, the corporate restructuring that converted its for-profit arm into a public benefit corporation, OpenAI Group PBC, while leaving the nonprofit in ultimate control. The recapitalisation valued OpenAI's for-profit at approximately $130 billion, giving the Foundation an equity stake that, per the announcement at the time, makes it one of the best-resourced philanthropic organisations in the world. Foundation board chair Bret Taylor is writing this update, which outlines where that resource is starting to flow. The four areas are life sciences and curing diseases, jobs and economic impact, AI resilience, and community programmes. The life sciences work is the most developed, with three named sub-areas: AI for Alzheimer's (mapping disease pathways, detecting biomarkers, accelerating personalised treatments); public data for health (creating and opening up scientific datasets); and accelerating progress on high-mortality, underfunded diseases. Jacob Trefethen has joined to lead this work; he comes from Coefficient Giving, a philanthropic organisation aligned with the effective altruism movement that has previously been at odds with OpenAI's leadership on AI development priorities. Coefficient Giving oversaw more than $500 million in science and health grantmaking under Trefethen. The EA connection is an editorial detail worth noting: the community that has been most vocal about catastrophic AI risk is now helping OpenAI distribute its philanthropic resources. For AI resilience ,the Foundation's term for the harms that arise from more capable AI, OpenAI co-founder Wojciech Zaremba is joining as Head of AI Resilience. Zaremba is one of a small number of OpenAI's original co-founders still at the company. The programme's initial focus includes AI's impact on children and youth, and the Foundation plans to announce the final wave of grants from its People-First AI Fund shortly. On jobs and economic impact, the Foundation says it has begun engaging with civil society organisations, small business owners, unions, and economists, but no specific programmes are named in today's post, more detail is promised in coming weeks. Two further appointments complete the Foundation's emerging leadership structure. Anna Makanju is joining in mid-April as Head of AI for Civil Society and Philanthropy, to lead work leveraging AI to help nonprofits, NGOs, and philanthropic institutions.

'AI will also present new threats to society' -- Sam Altman issues stark warning as $1 billion plan is revealed

OpenAI's CEO says AI could transform medicine, but warns the risks are too big for any one company to handle * Sam Altman says AI could accelerate breakthroughs like disease cures but warns it will also introduce serious new societal risks * Altman admits no single company can manage those dangers alone, calling for a coordinated global response * OpenAI's non-profit arm is committing $1 billion to areas like healthcare, economic impact, and AI resilience, including biosecurity Today, Sam Altman announced that the OpenAI Foundation, its non-profit arm, will spend at least $1 billion over the next year on discovering cures for disease. But alongside that announcement came a stark warning about the new threats AI could introduce and the fact that no single company can deal with them alone. "AI will help discover new science, such as cures for diseases, which is perhaps the most important way to increase quality of life long-term," Altman wrote in a post on X. He continued: "AI will also present new threats to society that we have to address. No company can sufficiently mitigate these on their own; we will need a society-wide response to things like novel bio threats, a massive and fast change to the economy, extremely capable models causing complex emergent effects across society, and more." While he remained vague on what those "complex emergent effects" might look like, concerns about advanced AI systems are not new. Recently, science communicator Neil deGrasse Tyson even suggested that forms of AI development leading to superintelligence are too "lethal" to pursue without limits. "No company can handle this alone" What stands out most here is Altman's admission that "no company can handle this alone." That feels different to his usual messaging around AI progress and feels like a warning. Altman has often spoken and written about society needing to adapt to AI. But this goes further. It suggests the risks may be too large, too fast-moving, and too unpredictable for even OpenAI to manage on its own. With that phrasing, Altman is reframing the issue of AI safety from a tech problem into a societal one. Where the $1 billion is going So where is that $1 billion actually going? While OpenAI now operates with a for-profit structure, the OpenAI Foundation continues to focus on long-term societal impact. Its stated mission is to "ensure artificial general intelligence benefits all of humanity." That's where the money is going. According to the Foundation, it expects to invest at least $1 billion over the next year across: life sciences and curing diseases, jobs and economic impact, AI resilience and community programs This forms part of a broader $25 billion long-term commitment. In healthcare, the initial focus includes Alzheimer's research, public health data, and accelerating progress on high-burden diseases. On the economic side, the Foundation says it is already working with small business owners, unions, and policymakers to explore how AI will reshape jobs and how to respond to the changing landscape. AI resilience AI resilience is one of the most revealing, and potentially unsettling, priorities of the OpenAI Foundation this year. It includes biosecurity, with OpenAI aiming to "strengthen how society prepares for potential biological threats -- both naturally occurring and AI-enabled outbreaks." That phrase "AI-enabled outbreaks" is mildly concerning. It lines up directly with Altman's warning about "novel biothreats," and hints at a future where AI doesn't just accelerate progress, but also lowers the barrier to dangerous capabilities. Spending $1 billion on AI safety and medical progress is, on paper, a positive step. But what makes this announcement interesting is the tension at its core. Altman is talking about curing diseases and improving quality of life while also warning that the same technology could introduce risks we don't yet fully understand. That raises a bigger question: if even the companies building AI are saying they can't control what's coming next, who can? Follow TechRadar on Google News and add us as a preferred source to get our expert news, reviews, and opinion in your feeds. Make sure to click the Follow button! And of course you can also follow TechRadar on TikTok for news, reviews, unboxings in video form, and get regular updates from us on WhatsApp too.

OpenAI Foundation pledges $1 billion to mitigate some of the jobs that it thinks AI will destroy | Fortune

OpenAI Foundation, the nonprofit that controls the artificial intelligence company OpenAI and its flagship product ChatGPT, pledged Tuesday to grant out $1 billion over the next year and to build up its capacity as a philanthropic funder. The pledge represents a major development in OpenAI's philanthropic activities and offers insight into how the company, which started as a nonprofit, plans to carry out its charitable mission to develop AI to benefit "all of humanity." "We aim to enable the use of AI to find solutions to humanity's hardest problems, transform what people are capable of, and deliver real benefits in people's lives -- while working hard with partners to be ready for new challenges, and to help make society resilient, as AI advances," OpenAI board chair Bret Taylor said in a statement Tuesday. The new funding will support life science and health research and will seek to mitigate some of the impacts of AI technologies on jobs, the economy and mental health, especially of children, the nonprofit said. It follows a commitment to spend $25 billion to support similar causes that OpenAI Foundation made in October, though without providing a time frame. OpenAI Foundation will also recruit a new executive director to oversee its grantmaking, it said. OpenAI started as a nonprofit research lab in 2015 but has sought to escape that structure over the past several years as it built out its commercial technologies like ChatGPT and its for-profit subsidiary, which is now one of the most highly valued startups in the world. In October, OpenAI finalized an agreement with regulators that left the nonprofit's board in charge of its for-profit business but eased the way for investors and the company to profit from its technologies. The deal also clarified the nonprofit's ownership stake in the company, which OpenAI said at the time was valued at $130 billion, making it one of the best-resourced nonprofits in the country. Since the incorporation of its for-profit business in 2019, OpenAI's nonprofit significantly scaled back its activities, going from listing $51 million in expenses in 2018 to $3.3 million the following year, according to its public tax filings. In 2024, the most recent year that the nonprofit reported its activities to the Internal Revenue Service, OpenAI's nonprofit received $4,433 in contributions and granted out $7.6 million. Brian Mittendorf, a professor of accounting and public affairs at The Ohio State University who specializes in nonprofits, cautioned that the tax forms were not well suited to capture OpenAI's activities and the extent to which they were focused on achieving its charitable mission. "People tend to focus on the financial part of that," said Mittendorf in an email. "Is the immense value creation being used to further a charitable objective? But an equally important piece is whether the product they are developing is serving humanity as they envisioned." It's a question that Elon Musk, an early financial backer of OpenAI, has also raised. Musk sued the company, claiming that CEO Sam Altman and others betrayed the nonprofit's mission in pursuit of profit in a case that will go to trial in California. In 2025, OpenAI made an effort to revitalize the nonprofit. It convened a temporary nonprofit advisory board to offer it nonbinding guidance about how to structure its philanthropic activities while it continued to negotiate with regulators and its investors about the extent to which the nonprofit board would remain in charge of its business. The advisory board, which included labor leader Dolores Huerta, eventually recommended that OpenAI significantly increase the resources it provided to its nonprofit and to consult extensively with communities about how AI is impacting them as it shapes its grant making. The nonprofit announced $40.5 million in grants to community-based nonprofits in December to support AI literacy, strengthen civic life and foster economic opportunity. OpenAI's new vision for its charitable grantmaking comes at the same time that communities around the country worry about data centers increasing electricity costs, lawsuits accuse AI chatbots of exacerbating mental health crises, and companies and advocates question the fitness of new AI technologies to be used in war. In addition to hiring a new director, OpenAI Foundation said Wojciech Zaremba, one of a handful of OpenAI co-founders still working for the company, will become the foundation's head of AI resilience, which is focused on the "new challenges that inevitably arise from more capable AI." Additionally, the nonprofit has brought on Jacob Trefethen to lead its life sciences and health grantmaking. Trefethen led a similar portfolio at the philanthropic organization, Coefficient Giving, which is a major funder of the effective altruism community that has sometimes clashed with OpenAI's vision for artificial intelligence. ___ Associated Press coverage of philanthropy and nonprofits receives support through the AP's collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content. For all of AP's philanthropy coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/philanthropy.

OpenAI Foundation Pledges $1B in Grants to Ensure AI 'Benefits All of Humanity'

OpenAI Foundation, the nonprofit that controls the artificial intelligence company OpenAI and its flagship product ChatGPT, pledged Tuesday to grant out $1 billion in the next year and to build up its capacity as a philanthropic funder. The pledge represents a major development in OpenAI's philanthropic activities and offers insight into how the company, which started as a nonprofit, plans to carry out its charitable mission to develop AI to benefit "all of humanity." "We aim to enable the use of AI to find solutions to humanity's hardest problems, transform what people are capable of, and deliver real benefits in people's lives -- while working hard with partners to be ready for new challenges, and to help make society resilient, as AI advances," OpenAI said in a statement Tuesday. The new funding will support life science and health research and will seek to mitigate some of the impacts of AI technologies on jobs, the economy and mental health, especially of children, the nonprofit said. It follows a commitment to spend $25 billion to support similar causes that OpenAI Foundation made in October, though without providing a time frame. OpenAI Foundation will also recruit a new executive director to oversee its grantmaking, it said. Ups and downs in OpenAI's nonprofit activities OpenAI started as a nonprofit research lab in 2015 but has sought to escape that structure over the past several years as it built out its commercial technologies like ChatGPT and its for-profit subsidiary, which is now one of the most highly valued startups in the world. In October, OpenAI finalized an agreement with regulators that left the nonprofit's board in charge of its for-profit business but eased the way for investors and the company to profit from its technologies. The deal also clarified the nonprofit's ownership stake in the company, which OpenAI said at the time was valued at $130 billion, making it one of the best-resourced nonprofits in the country. Since the incorporation of its for-profit business in 2019, OpenAI's nonprofit significantly scaled back its activities, going from listing $51 million in expenses in 2018 to $3.3 million the following year, according to its public tax filings. In 2024, the most recent year that the nonprofit reported its activities to the Internal Revenue Service, OpenAI's nonprofit received $4,433 in contributions and granted out $7.6 million. Brian Mittendorf, a professor of accounting and public affairs at The Ohio State University who specializes in nonprofits, cautioned that the tax forms were not well suited to capture OpenAI's activities and the extent to which they were focused on achieving its charitable mission. "People tend to focus on the financial part of that," said Mittendorf in an email. "Is the immense value creation being used to further a charitable objective? But an equally important piece is whether the product they are developing is serving humanity as they envisioned." Recent revision to nonprofit's role In 2025, OpenAI made an effort to revitalize the nonprofit. It convened a temporary nonprofit advisory board to offer it nonbinding guidance about how to structure its philanthropic activities while it continued to negotiate with regulators and its investors about the extent to which the nonprofit board would remain in charge of its business. The advisory board, which included labor leader Dolores Huerta, eventually recommended that OpenAI significantly increase the resources it provided to its nonprofit and to consult extensively with communities about how AI is impacting them as it shapes its grant making. The nonprofit announced $40.5 million in grants to community-based nonprofits in December to support AI literacy, strengthen civic life and foster economic opportunity. OpenAI's new vision for its charitable grantmaking comes at the same time that communities around the country worry about data centers increasing electricity costs, lawsuits accuse AI chatbots of exacerbating mental health crises, and companies and advocates question the fitness of new AI technologies to be used in war. ___ Associated Press coverage of philanthropy and nonprofits receives support through the AP's collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content. For all of AP's philanthropy coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/philanthropy.

OpenAI Foundation outlines $1 billion push, expands leadership team - The Economic Times

OpenAI has committed at least $1 billion over the next year as part of recapitalisation efforts for its Foundation. The investment is aimed at using artificial intelligence (AI) to solve "humanity's hardest problems."OpenAI has committed at least $1 billion over the next year as part of recapitalisation efforts for its Foundation. The investment is aimed at using artificial intelligence (AI) to solve "humanity's hardest problems." The announcement follows a previous $25 billion commitment toward curing diseases and building AI resilience. The company will share more updates in the coming months, according to a blog post published on Tuesday. As part of its push to transform lives through AI and address real-world challenges, the company has expanded its team. The foundation's near-term focus includes backing AI-driven research into diseases such as Alzheimer's, supporting child safety efforts, and investing in programmes that address the societal effects of AI from jobs to mental health. OpenAI Foundation new hires Anna Makanju will join the OpenAI Foundation as head of AI for Civil Society and Philanthropy in mid-April. In her new role, she will work with nonprofits, NGOs, philanthropic institutions, and the broader civil society ecosystem. Previously, she served as vice president of Global Impact at OpenAI. Additionally, Robert Kaiden will join as chief financial officer of the Foundation. Kaiden brings leadership experience from roles at Deloitte, Twitter (now X), and Inspirato. Further, former Oracle and Dropbox executive Jeff Arnold will join as director of operations. He has previously been a member of the OpenAI team. In this role, Arnold will oversee operational systems needed to support the Foundation's goals. The organisation will also hire an executive director soon, it said.

OpenAI Foundation pledges $1B in grants to ensure AI 'benefits all of humanity'

OpenAI Foundation, the nonprofit that controls the artificial intelligence company OpenAI and its flagship product ChatGPT, pledged Tuesday to grant out US$1 billion over the next year and to build up its capacity as a philanthropic funder. The pledge represents a major development in OpenAI's philanthropic activities and offers insight into how the company, which started as a nonprofit, plans to carry out its charitable mission to develop AI to benefit "all of humanity." "We aim to enable the use of AI to find solutions to humanity's hardest problems, transform what people are capable of, and deliver real benefits in people's lives -- while working hard with partners to be ready for new challenges, and to help make society resilient, as AI advances," OpenAI board chair Bret Taylor said in a statement Tuesday. The new funding will support life science and health research and will seek to mitigate some of the impacts of AI technologies on jobs, the economy and mental health, especially of children, the nonprofit said. It follows a commitment to spend $25 billion to support similar causes that OpenAI Foundation made in October, though without providing a time frame. OpenAI Foundation will also recruit a new executive director to oversee its grantmaking, it said. OpenAI started as a nonprofit research lab in 2015 but has sought to escape that structure over the past several years as it built out its commercial technologies like ChatGPT and its for-profit subsidiary, which is now one of the most highly valued startups in the world. In October, OpenAI finalized an agreement with regulators that left the nonprofit's board in charge of its for-profit business but eased the way for investors and the company to profit from its technologies. The deal also clarified the nonprofit's ownership stake in the company, which OpenAI said at the time was valued at $130 billion, making it one of the best-resourced nonprofits in the country. Since the incorporation of its for-profit business in 2019, OpenAI's nonprofit significantly scaled back its activities, going from listing $51 million in expenses in 2018 to $3.3 million the following year, according to its public tax filings. In 2024, the most recent year that the nonprofit reported its activities to the Internal Revenue Service, OpenAI's nonprofit received $4,433 in contributions and granted out $7.6 million. Brian Mittendorf, a professor of accounting and public affairs at The Ohio State University who specializes in nonprofits, cautioned that the tax forms were not well suited to capture OpenAI's activities and the extent to which they were focused on achieving its charitable mission. "People tend to focus on the financial part of that," said Mittendorf in an email. "Is the immense value creation being used to further a charitable objective? But an equally important piece is whether the product they are developing is serving humanity as they envisioned." It's a question that Elon Musk, an early financial backer of OpenAI, has also raised. Musk sued the company, claiming that CEO Sam Altman and others betrayed the nonprofit's mission in pursuit of profit in a case that will go to trial in California. In 2025, OpenAI made an effort to revitalize the nonprofit. It convened a temporary nonprofit advisory board to offer it nonbinding guidance about how to structure its philanthropic activities while it continued to negotiate with regulators and its investors about the extent to which the nonprofit board would remain in charge of its business. The advisory board, which included labor leader Dolores Huerta, eventually recommended that OpenAI significantly increase the resources it provided to its nonprofit and to consult extensively with communities about how AI is impacting them as it shapes its grant making. The nonprofit announced $40.5 million in grants to community-based nonprofits in December to support AI literacy, strengthen civic life and foster economic opportunity. OpenAI's new vision for its charitable grantmaking comes at the same time that communities around the country worry about data centers increasing electricity costs, lawsuits accuse AI chatbots of exacerbating mental health crises, and companies and advocates question the fitness of new AI technologies to be used in war. In addition to hiring a new director, OpenAI Foundation said Wojciech Zaremba, one of a handful of OpenAI co-founders still working for the company, will become the foundation's head of AI resilience, which is focused on the "new challenges that inevitably arise from more capable AI." Additionally, the nonprofit has brought on Jacob Trefethen to lead its life sciences and health grantmaking. Trefethen led a similar portfolio at the philanthropic organization, Coefficient Giving, which is a major funder of the effective altruism community that has sometimes clashed with OpenAI's vision for artificial intelligence. ___

OpenAI's nonprofit arm names leaders, plans to spend at least $1 billion over next year

March 24 (Reuters) - OpenAI on Tuesday announced key leadership appointments for its nonprofit arm and committed to investing at least $1 billion through the division over the next year in AI-related projects following a major restructuring at the ChatGPT-maker. The OpenAI Foundation's spending will focus on measures including life sciences and medical research and workforce and community programs, OpenAI said. In October, it announced a restructuring that allowed the company to move away from its nonprofit roots, likely to go public and help unlock more financing. The deal transformed OpenAI into a public benefit corporation controlled by a nonprofit with a stake in its financial success. The company said on Tuesday that Robert Kaiden was joining the foundation as CFO. Kaiden has previously held senior leadership positions at Deloitte, Twitter - now called X - and luxury travel company Inspirato. Through the investment, OpenAI will partner with institutions to use AI to research and develop treatments for Alzheimer's. It will also focus on high-mortality disease areas that do not receive enough funding, the company said. It also said it would fund the development of AI safety measures for children and youth as well as community initiatives. OpenAI co-founder Wojciech Zaremba is joining the foundation to lead the company's AI safety work, while Jacob Trefethen - from philanthropic funding and advisory firm Coefficient Giving - will head the foundation's life sciences efforts. (Reporting by Deborah Sophia in Bengaluru; Editing by Maju Samuel and Pooja Desai)

OpenAI to invest 1 billion USD in new foundation for AI-driven disease research, warns of rising risks

Wojciech Zaremba will lead AI resilience efforts, alongside new leadership hires across research, finance, and operations. OpenAI is now working on a new foundation that will invest at least $1 billion over the next year to accelerate scientific discovery, including the search for cures to major diseases. Taking to X, CEO Sam Altman said that artificial intelligence has the potential to improve the quality of life by enabling breakthroughs in sectors such as medical research. The early focus will be on life sciences with an effort to analyse complex biological data, identifying disease patterns and supporting work on high-impact health challenges. But, at the same time, Altman has warned that the rapid change in AI also brings serious risks that cannot be handled by individual companies alone. He also mentioned concerns ranging from emerging biological threats to large-scale economic disruption and unpredictable societal effects caused by increasingly capable AI systems. Addressing these challenges will require coordinated efforts across government, industry and civil society. Also read: OpenAI is killing Sora AI video generation app, leaves internet divided "AI will also present new threats to society that we have to address. No company can sufficiently mitigate these on their own; we will need a society-wide response to things like novel bio threats, a massive and fast change to the economy, extremely capable models causing complex emergent effects across society, and more," he stated in the post. Altman also announced the new structure in the same post, stating OpenAI co-founder Wojciech Zaremba will transition to the role of Head of AI Resilience, where he will work on developing strategies to manage long-term risks associated with advanced AI. Altman also stated that this is important to rethink how safety is approached. The foundation is also bringing in new leadership across key areas- Jacob Trefethen will lead initiatives related to disease research, while Anna Adeola Makanju will head efforts focused on civil society and philanthropy. Financial and operational roles will be overseen by Robert Kaiden and Jeff Arnold, the post added.