Colby College announced Tuesday that it will use the largest donation in its history — a $150 million anonymous gift — to build a science complex on its campus and expand its statewide research footprint.

The new 200,000-square-foot complex, slated to be complete by 2030, will include classrooms, laboratories and new specialized equipment.

Some of that equipment will be placed in a communal area to encourage researchers of different disciplines to work together. That kind of collaboration is central to the new science initiative, Colby President David A. Greene said.

“We’re trying to build a science complex and a science program for the next century, not for the last one,” Greene said. “Seeing where science is going — more AI involvement, deeper imaging and computation, far more integrated across the disciplines, that connection of applied and basic sciences — the idea is to put all of those together in the most forward and modern complex and program that we have at any liberal arts college in the country. We have that opportunity that’s in front of us right now.”

Colby also plans to hire new faculty in biomedical engineering, environmental engineering and public health and plans to expand its data science, computational biology and marine science programs.

Those expansions, Greene said, will help grow Colby’s collaboration with researchers and laboratories across the state.

Benjamin Twining, vice president for education and a senior research scientist at Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences in East Boothbay, said he’s especially encouraged by the fields of study supported by the new initiative, especially in solutions-focused environmental science.

Bigelow has hosted Colby students for summer and fall internships for several years, Twining said. Strengthening their collaboration can spur innovation and help solutions become more widespread, he said.

“That’s an area where Bigelow firmly sits and also has a shared interest and a lot of motivation to work on environmentally based solutions to climate, to human issues like food and environmental remediation and things like (marine) biotechnology,” Twining said. “We’re very interested in trying to get the types of technologies that we work on into the marketplace, and a great way to do that is to work with students who can bring that energy and serve as glue between our science and the world that they move into.”

The Mount Desert Island Biological Laboratory in Bar Harbor has collaborated with Colby for more than two decades, thanks to funding from a federal program that brings students and faculty to conduct research with scientists at the lab.

As federal funds for scientific initiatives become more scarce, MDI Biological Laboratory President Dr. Hermann Haller said building the sustainability of Maine’s own scientific ecosystem is more important than ever.

Colby’s new investment, Haller said, will help build that sustainability and weave the state’s scientific and collaborative infrastructure closer together.

“Sharing and developing these areas together — that’s crucial for the development in this state,” Haller said. “Imagine places like Boston. They have dozens of different institutes working together, sharing resources. So, the initiative from Colby, one of the largest in the state, will help us to develop the same network of scientific collaborations.”

Colby’s statewide impact was already on the rise before Tuesday’s announcement.

Last month, the college announced it was building a Center for Resilience and Economic Impact in Port Clyde, where interdisciplinary researchers will work on solutions before and after natural disasters. That announcement followed a $10 million investment from a member of the college’s board of trustees last year to build a new computational and data sciences center on its Waterville campus.

Colby also released the results of its six-year economic impact study last month, touting that it had contributed more than $1.3 billion in economic activity in the Waterville area, and more than $2.5 billion in Maine overall, since 2019.

The initiative also includes collaboration with public schools in central Maine. The new facility will host summer camps, experiments for K-12 classes and training for teachers on lab techniques and science class curriculum, according to Colby’s news release about the project.

“We can make this science program and science complex a place that’s really welcoming to science teachers, to students, where we engage science teachers in the act of discovery, having them work in research labs, for example, so that they bring that same kind of understanding and enthusiasm back into the classroom at Waterville High School or at Winslow High School,” Greene said.

Greene said 14 architectural firms have submitted proposals to design the new science building on Colby’s campus, and that a committee would meet Wednesday to narrow the list.

The $150 million anonymous donation is the culmination of six years of work on the initiative, Greene said. But another $150 million will need to be fundraised to complete the facility.

Greene said he’s hopeful that the initial gift will encourage other investors to contribute.

“That gives an opportunity for other donors to be able to jump on board right now and know that this project is live, that they can help push it over the line and make sure it gets done, and that their dollars now can make a huge impact on it,” he said.