Tech Billionaires Back $1 Billion for CERN’s Next Physics Breakthrough

(Bloomberg) — Some of the wealthiest individuals in technology including Eric Schmidt and France’s Xavier Niel have pledged as much as €860 million ($1 billion) to CERN to fund a proposed successor to the Large Hadron Collider, as the storied research institute turns to private backers for the first time for future breakthroughs.

Switzerland-based CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, has lined up donors to help fund the proposed Future Circular Collider, a replacement for its famed particle accelerator on the French–Swiss border, the institute said Thursday. The Large Hadron Collider is a 16.8-mile underground ring that smashes protons at near light speed to advance fundamental physics research. It is currently the world’s largest and most powerful particle accelerator, and is famed for the discovery of the Higgs boson particle in 2012.

Other named donors include Exor NV Chief Executive Officer John Elkann and the Breakthrough Prize Foundation, whose founding sponsors include Alphabet Inc.’s Google cofounder Sergey Brin and ex-wife Anne Wojcicki, Meta Platforms Inc. and founder Mark Zuckerberg and wife Priscilla Chan. The list also includes Russian-born entrepreneur and investor Yuri Milner, who renounced his Russian citizenship in 2022 and now holds an Israeli passport, along with his wife Julia. Former Google chief Schmidt’s contribution came via the Eric and Wendy Schmidt Fund for Strategic Innovation.

Representatives for Niel, Elkann, the Eric and Wendy Schmidt Foundation and the Breakthrough Prize did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

CERN is the world’s top physics research hub, responsible for technological breakthroughs such as the World Wide Web, created by British scientist Tim Berners-Lee as a way to share information across borders. The lab is turning to private funding for the first time to retain its research lead, as the Large Hadron Collider nears the end of its useful life and as China seeks to develop its own particle accelerator.

“Sustained investment in research, talent, and innovation is crucial to strengthen Europe’s competitiveness,” a CERN spokesperson said in an email to Bloomberg News, adding that the proposed new collider could support breakthroughs in energy, computing and medicine.

Competing Plans for World’s Biggest Collider

China is evaluating building its own particle accelerator, the Circular Electron Positron Collider. A research group led by particle physicist Wang Yifang, a professor at the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ Institute of High Energy Physics, proposed building the world’s longest collider at 62 miles. CERN has previously warned that Chinese advances could come at the expense of European and US leadership in particle physics.

Still, China’s plans look to be on hold for now, Wang confirmed in a statement to Bloomberg. The Chinese project wasn’t included in the country’s latest five-year plan, where it outlines national development priorities. The team will continue to work on the particle accelerator’s design, but will try and collaborate with CERN if the Future Circular Collider is approved by 2030.

The pledges don’t mean the Future Circular Collider is a done deal. The first stage of the particle accelerator is estimated to cost as much as $17 billion and construction requires approval from CERN’s 25 member states. If funded and greenlit, it would be housed in a 56.5-mile tunnel and take over from the Large Hadron Collider in the mid-2040s. A decision is expected around 2028.

(Updates with details on Milner’s Israeli citizenship in third paragraph)

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