NVIDIA Corporation (NVDA.US) partners with Eli Lilly (LLY.US) to increase investment in AI pharmaceuticals, with a five-year $1 billion commitment to jointly build a Silicon Valley joint laboratory.

NVIDIA Corporation (NVDA.US) announced on Monday that it will co-invest $1 billion over the next five years with Eli Lilly (LLY.US) to build a joint laboratory in Silicon Valley, with the goal of accelerating the application of artificial intelligence (AI) in the pharmaceutical industry. NVIDIA Corporation stated that the facility will bring Lilly's lab capabilities closer to global AI innovation centers. The company described the project as a "joint investment" but did not disclose specific financial terms. Both parties hope to expedite the currently labor-intensive and lengthy drug development process that relies heavily on human and physical experiments through AI. This investment also highlights NVIDIA Corporation's efforts to cultivate new application markets for its products after significantly strengthening its financial capabilities. As one of the most valuable companies in the world, NVIDIA Corporation leads the field of AI accelerators (chips used for developing and running AI models), but its revenue is still highly concentrated among a few large tech clients. The company sees the healthcare and pharmaceutical industries as important areas for technological growth. In fact, the industry has already begun utilizing AI computing systems to propose potential new drugs or compound solutions, but they usually still require validation in the lab. NVIDIA Corporation believes that AI has the potential to automate a significant portion of this work. Kimberly Powell, Vice President of Healthcare at NVIDIA Corporation, stated, "Humans are the main bottleneck limiting the speed of experiments in the lab." The joint laboratory will help AI engineers gain a better understanding of how lab equipment operates and research workflows, leading to the optimization of computer and software tools by pharmaceutical companies to perform tasks that were traditionally carried out by humans. In addition to the joint laboratory, NVIDIA Corporation is also expanding its AI models and intelligent agents for the healthcare industry, releasing them in an open-source manner for customization by external parties according to their needs. In terms of ecosystem collaboration, NVIDIA Corporation is working with Thermo Fisher Scientific (TMO.US) to connect lab equipment to NVIDIA Corporation's DGX Spark AI computers for automated control of research activities. They are also collaborating with Multiply Labs to train Siasun Robot & Automation to master research processes and pave the way for highly automated lab facilities in the future. Industry experts point out that this collaboration will propel Lilly to the forefront of AI-powered drug discovery, but the field is still in its early stages and major commercial breakthroughs have not yet emerged. This agreement builds on the previous collaboration between the two parties: in October of last year, NVIDIA Corporation and Lilly announced the joint creation of "the most powerful supercomputer owned and operated by a pharmaceutical company," deployed at Lilly's headquarters in Indianapolis, with plans for full operation in the first quarter of this year. Lilly stated that its employees will work side by side with NVIDIA Corporation's team to achieve seamless collaboration and access to world-class scientific and technical talent. The innovation lab will initially focus on drug discovery and AI model development.