CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, says private donors have pledged $1 billion toward building what would become the largest particle accelerator ever constructed, marking a historic shift in how major fundamental science projects are funded, as reported by Phys.org.
For the first time in its history, CERN has secured backing from private individuals and philanthropic foundations for a flagship research instrument. The donors include the Breakthrough Prize Foundation, backed by Silicon Valley investor Yuri Milner, the Eric and Wendy Schmidt Fund for Strategic Innovation led by former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, Italian industrial heir John Elkann of the Agnelli family, and French telecom billionaire Xavier Niel.
CERN Director-General Fabiola Gianotti called the move unprecedented. She said it marks the first time private donors have chosen to partner with CERN on an instrument of this scale, one intended to push humanity’s understanding of fundamental physics into entirely new territory.
Today, CERN already operates the world’s largest particle accelerator, the Large Hadron Collider. The LHC is a 27-kilometer ring buried roughly 100 meters beneath the French-Swiss border near Geneva. It famously helped confirm the existence of the Higgs boson in 2012, a breakthrough that explained how particles acquire mass and earned a Nobel Prize in Physics the following year.
But the LHC will not run forever. CERN expects it to reach the end of its scientific life around 2040. To continue exploring the deepest questions of the universe, scientists are proposing a far more ambitious machine called the Future Circular Collider, or FCC.
The FCC would dwarf the LHC. Current plans envision a ring with a circumference of 91 kilometers and an average depth of about 200 meters underground. Its goal would be to probe physics beyond what is currently observable, including the nature of dark matter and dark energy.
Scientists estimate that everything we can see, from stars and planets to people and particles, makes up only about 5% of the universe. The remaining 95% is composed of dark matter and dark energy, mysterious components that have never been directly observed. The FCC is designed to help uncover what those unseen parts of the universe actually are.
The full project is estimated to cost around $17 billion and has not yet been approved by CERN’s 25 member states. A final decision is expected in 2028. The $1 billion pledge from private donors does not greenlight the project, but it does signal growing confidence and interest beyond government funding alone.
Eric Schmidt said the FCC could push the boundaries of human knowledge while also delivering practical benefits. Technologies developed for the collider could influence fields ranging from medicine and computing to energy and sustainability.
Supporters describe the FCC as potentially the most powerful scientific instrument ever built. Whether it moves forward will depend on political will, funding commitments, and public support, but the involvement of private donors suggests that the next leap in fundamental physics may be closer than it once seemed.
