Stephen Hawking believes “we must know” if aliens are out there.

The physicist — along with Russian tycoon Yuri Milner — launched a $100 million project with the purpose of searching for intelligent extraterrestrial life. They’re calling the project Breakthrough Listen.

Hawking spoke a news conference, noting our belief that life arose spontaneously on Earth. “So in an infinite universe, there must be other occurrences of life,” he added.

Astronomer Geoffrey Marcy added that there is enough evidence from Earth-like exoplanets to suggest there is life elsewhere in the universe. Apparently, we’re barely trying to find evidence of aliens as things stand.

Breakthrough Listen could be huge in getting some of the greatest minds in our planet together to find intelligent extraterrestrial life.

The project is part of the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI), which has been around since 1960.