With the planned new building by the City of Vienna, AITHYRA gains a long-term perspective at one of Europe’s most dynamic life sciences hotspots. Founded in mid-2024 by the Austrian Academy of Sciences (OeAW) with funding from the non-profit Boehringer Ingelheim Foundation, the institute innovatively links AI research with biomedical questions. It is currently setting up its first research teams and is temporarily using space at the Vienna BioCenter.

As the main tenant of tthe new Life Science Center Vienna, AITHYRA will use around 7,000 square meters for laboratories and offices with cutting-edge equipment, as well as collaborative research spaces—providing more room for top-level research and interdisciplinary cooperation.

€170 Million for Life Sciences

The Life Science Center Vienna is being constructed on behalf of the City of Vienna by the Vienna Business Agency and is scheduled for completion by 2029. With a total floor area of 14,000 square meters, it will offer research and innovation spaces for companies, start-ups, and institutions in the fields of biomedicine, technology, and artificial intelligence. With an investment volume of around €170 million, Vienna is setting an important stimulus for research, technology, and the networking of science and industry.

The center is being built in Neu Marx in Vienna’s 3rd district, in close proximity to the University of Vienna’s Biology Center and the Vienna BioCenter, which also hosts two other ÖAW life sciences institutes: IMBA – the Institute of Molecular Biotechnology, and GMI – the Gregor Mendel Institute of Molecular Plant Biology. This will create a new ecosystem for collaboration and knowledge transfer both within and around the new building.

A Boost for Austria as a Research Location

OeAW President Heinz Faßmann says, “The Life Sciences Center Vienna is a strong signal for the future of Vienna and Austria as a center of science. For AITHYRA, it opens up new spaces, as well as entirely new opportunities for collaboration and the exchange of ideas, which will foster innovations from which medicine—and ultimately all of our health—will benefit. Bringing basic research and the start-up scene together under one roof will ensure that the latest scientific findings reach people quickly and strengthen our country’s competitiveness.”

With its currently four life sciences institutes—AITHYRA, IMBA, GMI, and CeMM (the Research Center for Molecular Medicine)— OeAW is one of the largest players in the academic sector in Austria. Several start-ups have already emerged from these institutes and successfully established themselves on the international market. OeAW continues to invest in the life sciences: the Cori Institute is currently being established in Graz, where, in cooperation with the three universities, metabolic diseases such as diabetes will be researched using fundamentally new, interdisciplinary approaches.