Maria Di Mento

Billionaire Stephen Schwarzman’s mega gift aims to develop ethically grounded AI leaders and accelerate America’s competitiveness. In 2018, ChatGPT was four years away and artificial intelligence was a wonky concern for tech and policy thinkers. But thanks to what billionaire financier Stephen Schwarzman saw on business trips to China, he was already worried about Chinese dominance of the technology and wanted to increase American competitiveness. He was also concerned about the potentially disastrous impact on the U.S. work force, economy, and national security.

Frank McCourt Jr. gave $100 million to launch Project Liberty, a new nonprofit organization that aims to develop ideas to make the internet more equitable. Of the total, $75 million will create the McCourt Institute, which will advance the development of technology solutions to solve some of the problems that have flourished through internet platforms.