Bezos Earth Fund awards grants to AI projects targeting sustainable protein solutions

The Bezos Earth Fund has announced that nine of the 24 projects selected in the first phase of its US$100 million AI Grand Challenge will focus on sustainable proteins, with each recipient receiving a US$50,000 grant to develop AI-powered solutions in the food space.

Among the institutions receiving funding are Cornell University’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, Delft University of Technology, Essential Impact, Food System Innovations, King’s College London, New Harvest, The Periodic Table of Food Initiative, the University of Leeds, and Wageningen University & Research. These grantees will explore how artificial intelligence can support a more sustainable food system by helping reduce reliance on conventional meat and dairy, cutting emissions, and improving efficiency in protein production.

The AI Grand Challenge, unveiled earlier this year, aims to harness the capabilities of artificial intelligence to address climate change, biodiversity loss, and other environmental challenges. In this first phase, the Bezos Earth Fund is distributing US$1.2 million across 24 initiatives. Later this year, up to 15 of those projects will be selected to receive Phase II grants of US$2 million each to scale up their solutions over two years.

According to the Bezos Earth Fund, the sustainable protein projects are focused on a variety of goals, including developing alternatives to traditional animal agriculture and making food production more resource-efficient. “The selected projects will use AI to test the possibility of what was once unimaginable, from turning food waste into reusable proteins for food producers to monitoring wildlife poaching through audio recordings,” said Lauren Sánchez, Vice Chair of the Bezos Earth Fund.

Dr Amen Ra Mashariki, Director of AI & Data Strategies at the fund, emphasized the broader ambition behind the challenge. “Climate change and biodiversity loss are among the most pressing challenges of our time, and AI has the potential to significantly accelerate our response,” he said. “By empowering innovators with seed funding and fostering collaboration between frontline environmental organizations and AI experts, the AI Grand Challenge is catalyzing the next wave of transformative solutions.”

The nine protein-related initiatives are expected to apply AI in diverse ways, from analyzing microbial communities to optimize fermentation processes, to mapping global food composition data that could inform alternative protein formulation. While individual project details have not yet been published, New Harvest, a non-profit known for supporting cellular agriculture research, and Wageningen University, a leader in food innovation, are likely to play pivotal roles in advancing AI-driven research in the protein transition.

Each recipient will participate in an Innovation Sprint, a structured program designed to refine their proposals, build cross-disciplinary teams, and develop concrete plans for scaling. During this period, grantees will be supported by mentors from the private sector, matched according to the technological and scientific needs of their project.