AI enlisted as woolly mammoth revival timeline slips to 2030s
Colossal Biosciences now expects the de-extinction project to reach the early 2030s after finding it must edit more than double the genes initially projected.
Artificial intelligence is now central to the effort to resurrect the woolly mammoth, but the Dallas-based company behind the project says the revived animals won’t arrive as soon as planned.
Colossal Biosciences told TIME that its timeline has slipped from a 2024 forecast of lab-reared baby mammoths within roughly four years to “the early 2030s,” with CEO Ben Lamm specifying: “We don’t have a hard date. Not 2036, but not 2030 either.”
The setback reflects a sharper view of the gene-editing task. The company initially believed it could edit about 60 genes in an elephant nucleus to produce a mammoth nucleus and embryo; it now expects to edit more than 150 genes.
That work has proved harder than the company’s dire wolf de-extinction, which it says it completed in 2025.
Colossal is using AI alongside CRISPR gene-editing across its de-extinction portfolio, which also includes the flightless dodo, the Tasmanian tiger, and the emu-like moa.
The mammoth effort draws on DNA harvested from frozen mammoth remains found in Siberia in 2018. Research has produced information about the genetic code for elephants and mammoths, including genes that would control the size of mammoth ears.
The company has already demonstrated partial genetic transfer in living animals: a family of 38 woolly mice was created using mammoth genetic coding for shaggy hair.
No specific year has been set for the mammoth’s debut. Lamm told TIME “early 2030s” and ruled out 2030 and 2036, leaving the exact timing unresolved as the company works through a longer-than-expected list of gene edits.
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