$26 million newest climate bet by Eric Schmidt targets the hardest part of the energy transition

Eric Schmidt is putting $26 million behind a deceptively simple question: how can climate models help people make better decisions in the places where the energy transition actually happens?

Schmidt Sciences, the philanthropic organization founded and funded by Eric and Wendy Schmidt, just announced that it will award five-year grants to five international research teams through its new Decarbonization and Energy Virtual Institute, known as DEVI.

The grants are the first awarded through the program, which aims to turn large-scale energy and climate models into practical tools for cities, power grids, factories, farms and communities.

The announcement gives a clearer picture of where Schmidt’s climate philanthropy is heading. Rather than concentrating only on individual technologies such as batteries, solar panels or carbon-capture systems, the organization is investing in the complex modeling needed to determine how those technologies can work together—and what their consequences might be.

That challenge is becoming more urgent as governments and companies attempt to move from broad net-zero promises to detailed implementation plans.

A national climate strategy may call for more renewable energy, electric vehicles and cleaner industry. But the real-world questions are much harder: Where should new transmission lines be built?

How much storage will the grid require?

What happens to electricity prices?

How will land use change?

Which communities benefit, and which ones bear the costs?

DEVI is designed to address those questions by connecting models that traditionally operate at different levels. Global models can show how energy systems might evolve over decades, while local models can examine individual buildings, industries or power networks.

The difficulty is making those systems work together without losing the detail that makes the results useful.

The five newly funded projects approach the problem from different directions.

One team, led by Martín Wainstein of the Open Earth Foundation, will study the gap between national climate plans and the realities facing cities.

The project will examine whether assumptions about energy prices, buildings, grid capacity and policy implementation still make sense when applied locally.

Researchers from Central European University, Imperial College London and the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis will take part, with artificial intelligence used to help connect models operating at different scales.

A second project, led by Jennifer Morris of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, will focus on the wider economic effects of decarbonization.

Its models will look beyond emissions to examine connections involving water, land, food production, air quality, jobs and inequality.

The initial research will include India and the Zambezi region of southern Africa, where energy decisions are closely tied to economic development and resource constraints.

A third team will work on the power grid itself. Led by Gunnar Luderer of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and Fabian Neumann of the Technical University of Berlin, the project will try to connect long-term global energy models with the hour-by-hour realities of operating a modern electricity system.

The researchers will study the United States, the European Union, India, China and other regions, with particular attention to the cost of integrating renewable power, storage and transmission.

Industrial emissions are the focus of a Princeton University-led project headed by Jesse Jenkins.

Heavy industry is among the most difficult parts of the economy to decarbonize because some manufacturing processes cannot simply be electrified.

The team will develop faster methods for modeling industrial systems, initially concentrating on the United States and potentially expanding its work to India and China.

The fifth project, led by Wuletawu Abera of the International Center for Tropical Agriculture, will study forests, agriculture and other land-use systems that can remove carbon from the atmosphere.

Those systems are highly sensitive to weather, land management and economic conditions. The researchers plan to use probability-based models to help policymakers understand which land-use strategies are likely to remain effective under different future scenarios, beginning with Ethiopia, India and Brazil.

The goal is not to produce another set of abstract climate projections. DEVI’s stated purpose is to create models and methods that can support decisions about technology deployment and policy. Earlier descriptions of the program called for cross-disciplinary research into the interdependencies among sectors, improved model design, uncertainty analysis and more context-specific results.

That focus reflects the broader pattern of Schmidt’s philanthropic activity. Since leaving Google’s top leadership, Eric Schmidt has used his wealth and influence to build or support institutions aimed at science, technology, climate, oceans, education and public service.

The Schmidt Family Foundation, founded by Eric and Wendy Schmidt, has supported renewable energy, resilient food systems, ocean health and human rights. Their broader network also includes Schmidt Ocean Institute, Schmidt Futures and the Schmidt Science Fellows program.

Schmidt Sciences, established in 2024, brings many of those interests under a more explicitly research-driven umbrella. Its work spans climate, artificial intelligence, advanced computing, astrophysics, biosciences and other areas where the organization believes new scientific tools could produce broad public benefits.

Wendy Schmidt is part of that philanthropic structure as a co-founder and longstanding leader of the family’s environmental work.

The immediate test for Schmidt’s investment will be whether the models become useful outside the research community.

A more sophisticated simulation is not automatically a better policy tool. Governments and companies need results that are understandable, transparent about uncertainty and specific enough to guide decisions about infrastructure, investment and regulation.

Schmidt Sciences is betting that better modeling can help close the gap between global climate ambition and local implementation.

Its next DEVI funding round will focus on urban decarbonization, including the connections among transportation, buildings and the infrastructure that supports them. Expressions of intent are due Oct. 2, 2026.

For Eric Schmidt, the $26 million commitment is another example of a distinctive philanthropic strategy: use private capital to build research capacity around problems that are too interconnected, technical or long-term for a single grant or institution to solve.

The wager is that if scientists can better map the trade-offs of the energy transition, policymakers will have a better chance of making it work—not just on paper, but in the cities, factories, farms and communities that will ultimately have to live with it.