New artificial intelligence technologies made headlines last year for their ability to do everything from generating fake musical duets to understanding how proteins fold. But in biotech, one of the most well-funded AI players has been quiet.

Insitro, a South San Francisco firm, was founded in 2018 by Daphne Koller, who had previously been a Stanford professor, a 2004 MacArthur “genius” grant recipient, and the co-founder and co-CEO of the online course company Coursera. It raised more than $643 million in venture capital, according to PitchBook, from investors including T. Rowe Price, ARCH Venture Partners, and Casdin Capital. The company now has more than 260 employees spread out over 107,000 square feet of laboratory and office space.

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But what exactly is Koller building?

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