The Wallenberg Foundations award AI support to four research groups at KI
Four research groups at KI have been awarded the Knut and Alice Wallenberg AI Consultancy Grant, giving them access to AI expertise to integrate AI into their research projects quickly and effectively. This entirely new form of funding is intended to accelerate the research process and enable new breakthroughs. A total of eleven grants are awarded to research groups at six different universities in Sweden.
“We are in the midst of a fundamental transformation in how research is conducted. AI creates unprecedented opportunities, as well as challenges, for academia,” says Anders Ynnerman, deputy executive director of Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation, in a press release. “In many scientific fields, AI is opening the door to entirely new ways of working. However, Swedish researchers need access to advanced expertise and hands-on support to take full advantage of AI and address the challenges it presents.”
The new grant was established in response to the rapid development of artificial intelligence. Research and innovation are areas in which the technology is expected to lead to major breakthroughs far more quickly than before — and to discoveries that might otherwise not even be possible.
The use of AI in research is growing rapidly. For example, AI can quickly process enormous volumes of measurements, images, or text and learn from millions of previous experiments, simulations, and tests both successful and unsuccessful. An emerging trend is the use of AI agents to perform advanced analytical tasks, predict outcomes, and propose solutions.
AI can also rapidly generate scientific summaries from research publications available worldwide, creating both opportunities and challenges for researchers.
A new type of grant
The grant differs from conventional research funding because the research groups do not receive money. Instead, they are granted access to a specified number of hours of AI expertise. Each research group may receive up to 700 hours per funding round. This is a long-term initiative, with several calls for applications planned.
The applications received were evaluated by a scientific review committee, which assessed each project’s scientific excellence, the expected benefits of integrating AI, the availability of data, and the research group’s commitment to the project.
Projects at KI awarded AI expertise
Project: Mining synthetic DNA selection data for hidden binders or targeting agents
Principal investigator: Erik Benson, researcher at the Department of Microbiology, Tumour and Cell Biology
Project: Spatial AI for predicting cell fate transitions and disease course in multiple sclerosis
Principal investigator: Gonçalo Castelo-Branco, professor at the Department of Medical Biochemistry and Biophysics
Project: AI-based feature learning from 5PSeq for AMR phenotyping
Principal investigator: Vicent Pelechano, professor at the Department of Microbiology, Tumour and Cell Biology
Project: AI-driven discovery of spatial host microbiota niches controlling mucosal healing in IBD
Principal investigator: Eduardo Villablanca, professor at the Department of Medicine, Solna
Sweden’s largest private research funder
Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation has since its establishment in 1917 awarded over almost SEK 42 billion in grants. In 2025, SEK 2.45 billion was awarded to support excellence in research and education, making the Foundation Sweden’s largest private research funder and one of the largest in Europe.
Source: Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation