Anthropic has expanded its AI for Science commitment in Australia with an additional $10 million in Claude API credit grants, bringing its total investment in Australian research to $13 million since the program launched in April.
The company frames the expansion around a claim about national advantage. Australian researchers are world leaders in applying AI to major scientific challenges, including genomics, and Australia's combination of a genuinely diverse population and access to advanced health care makes long-term health studies possible across varied populations that are hard to run elsewhere.
That argument is already being tested at the Centre for Population Genomics, where researchers are using AI to accelerate the inclusion of underrepresented communities in genetic research and to build novel AI systems that scale the diagnosis of rare genetic diseases. The work has produced more than 150 new diagnoses for families whose initial genetic analysis was unsuccessful.
Beyond genomics and life sciences, Anthropic points to Australia's geographic, economic and environmental makeup as a driver of outsized contributions in agriculture and biosecurity, renewable energy and disease response preparedness. When chief executive Dario Amodei visited Australia in April and signed a memorandum of understanding with the Australian government, the company committed to a long-term partnership with the research and innovation economy and announced an initial $3 million in Claude API credits to four institutions.
The new money is spread across three programs.
AI for Science delivers substantial Claude API credits and collaboration with research institutions including the Victor Chang Cardiac Research Institute, the University of Canberra, the Garvan Institute of Medical Research and the Murdoch Children's Research Institute.
A Deep Tech Startups program, which launched first in Australia in April, provides credits to Australian founders working on deeply complex problems, from analytics for energy storage systems to fire-safe protective base layers for female firefighters to satellite collision avoidance. A rare disease stream, opened in July as a global call for applications centred on rare genetic diseases, resulted in Claude credits granted across five Australian research projects.
At the Victor Chang Cardiac Research Institute, researchers are applying AI to some of the hardest problems in heart research, from understanding hidden parts of the genome to improving drug safety to making genetic diagnosis fairer and more accurate. They are using Claude to analyse complex data, identify patterns that would otherwise be hard to detect and generate findings that can be tested in the lab or used to support clinical research.
"Artificial intelligence is opening up powerful new possibilities in cardiovascular research, helping us analyse complex data at a scale and speed that was previously out of reach," said Professor Jason Kovacic, Director and CEO of the Victor Chang Cardiac Research Institute.
At the University of Canberra, one project will develop an evidence-based AI chat system to support patient and nursing education, aiming to reduce misinformation and increase accessibility in medical communication. A second team there will enhance program development under the Thriving Kids national model, helping Early Childhood Educators across the Canberra region identify when early intervention is needed for childhood developmental delays, with the intended outcome of speeding up a family's ability to receive targeted support.
The Garvan Institute and the Murdoch Children's Research Institute both move to multi-year partnerships following successful pilots. Garvan's projects include cancer research using AI to uncover key insights into cancer biology, with the aim of better predicting treatment response and finding ways to prevent breast cancer metastasis, alongside its Biologics platform, which is using AI to design better drug candidates.
"The AI for Science expansion at Garvan comes at a genuinely exciting stage for us. It will let us interrogate our biological datasets at a depth and speed that hasn't been possible before, and tackle the hardest problems that currently stand between us and our ability to diagnose, treat and cure disease," says Professor Benjamin Kile, Executive Director and CEO of the Garvan Institute.
Murdoch Children's researchers will expand the organisation's Decoding Broken Hearts program and extend their use of Claude into stem cell research, clinical bioinformatics and neuroscience.
"The partnership with Anthropic enabled our small team to achieve in months what might otherwise have taken years. This capability is accelerating our research into the genetic drivers of heart disease and helping us move more quickly towards new treatments," said Professor Enzo Porrello of the Murdoch Children's Research Institute, speaking on the Decoding Broken Hearts project.
Anthropic says it is also building products for researchers, including Claude Science and a Model Hardware Standard research preview, and signals a deeper local presence.
"Beyond these grants, as we grow our local team in Australia, we aim to provide deeper engineering and Applied AI support to our AI for Science partners, and will continue to expand the grants program and fund new projects that align with the goals of Australia's National AI Plan and research agenda," said David Masters, Head of Policy ANZ, Anthropic. "We're looking forward to seeing what this new group of grantees will work on, accelerating discovery and growing the positive impact of scientific research on the economy."
