NVIDIA and Eli Lilly Launch Pioneering AI Co-Innovation Lab to Redefine Drug Discovery
NVIDIA and Eli Lilly and Company have announced the creation of a groundbreaking AI co-innovation lab designed to apply advanced artificial intelligence technologies to some of the pharmaceutical industry’s most complex and persistent challenges. The initiative marks one of the most ambitious collaborations to date between a leading life sciences company and a global AI and accelerated computing leader.
The new lab combines Lilly’s nearly 150 years of expertise in discovering, developing, and manufacturing medicines with NVIDIA’s leadership in AI, high-performance computing, and scalable AI infrastructure. Over the next five years, the two companies plan to jointly invest up to $1 billion in talent, computing resources, and infrastructure to support the lab’s mission of accelerating medicine development and scientific discovery.
Located in the San Francisco Bay Area, the AI co-innovation lab will bring together Lilly scientists specializing in biology, chemistry, and medicine with NVIDIA’s AI researchers, engineers, and model builders. By working side by side in a shared environment, these teams aim to generate large-scale, high-quality data and build powerful AI models capable of transforming how new therapies are identified and optimized. NVIDIA BioNeMo™, a platform purpose-built for biological and chemical AI, will serve as the foundational technology powering the collaboration.
“AI is transforming every industry, and its most profound impact will be in life sciences,” said Jensen Huang, founder and CEO of NVIDIA. “Together, NVIDIA and Lilly are creating a new blueprint for drug discovery—one where scientists can explore vast biological and chemical spaces in silico before a single molecule is ever synthesized.”
David A. Ricks, chair and CEO of Lilly, emphasized the long-term significance of the partnership. “For nearly 150 years, Lilly has been focused on delivering life-changing medicines to patients,” he said. “By combining our deep scientific knowledge and proprietary data with NVIDIA’s computational power and AI expertise, we have the opportunity to reinvent drug discovery. Bringing world-class talent together in a startup-style environment creates the conditions for breakthroughs that neither company could achieve on its own.”
Building a Continuous Learning System for Discovery
A core focus of the collaboration will be the creation of a continuous learning system that tightly integrates Lilly’s experimental wet labs with computational dry labs powered by AI. This scientist-in-the-loop framework is designed to support 24/7 AI-assisted experimentation, enabling biologists and chemists to run experiments, generate data, and refine AI models in a constantly evolving feedback loop.
By connecting real-world laboratory experimentation with advanced computational modeling, the system aims to dramatically shorten the time required to identify promising drug candidates. High-quality experimental data will continuously train and improve AI models, while AI-driven insights will guide future experiments—creating a self-reinforcing cycle of learning and discovery.
With access to unprecedented levels of computing power, massive proprietary datasets, and NVIDIA BioNeMo as the core platform, the teams will focus on developing next-generation foundation and frontier models for biology and chemistry. These models are expected to enhance the speed, accuracy, and scale of molecular discovery and optimization.
The initiative also builds on Lilly’s previously announced AI supercomputer, described as the most powerful in the pharmaceutical industry. This AI factory will leverage next-generation NVIDIA architectures, including NVIDIA Vera Rubin, to train large biomedical models capable of identifying, optimizing, and validating new molecules with exceptional efficiency.
Expanding AI Across the Pharmaceutical Value Chain
While drug discovery is the initial priority, the scope of the collaboration extends far beyond early-stage research. NVIDIA and Lilly plan to explore the application of AI across clinical development, manufacturing, and commercial operations. This includes integrating multimodal AI models, agentic AI systems, robotics, and digital twins to improve decision-making and operational efficiency.
In manufacturing, physical AI and robotics will play a critical role in enhancing Lilly’s ability to produce high-demand medicines and strengthen supply chain resilience. Using NVIDIA Omniverse™ libraries and NVIDIA RTX PRO™ Servers, Lilly will be able to create digital twins of its manufacturing facilities. These virtual replicas allow teams to simulate, stress test, and optimize production lines and entire supply chains before implementing changes in the physical world.
Supporting a Global Innovation Ecosystem
The co-innovation lab also reinforces NVIDIA’s commitment to open and collaborative AI development. NVIDIA’s open-source AI ecosystem provides companies with the models, tools, and frameworks needed to build real-world AI systems, while the NVIDIA Inception program supports startups through technical mentorship, software access, and computing resources.
Lilly’s TuneLab platform further extends this ecosystem by offering biotech companies access to select AI models for drug discovery, built on decades of Lilly’s proprietary data. Future TuneLab workflows are expected to incorporate NVIDIA Clara™ open foundation models for life sciences, enabling broader access to cutting-edge AI capabilities.
Together, the lab will serve as a hub for researchers, startups, and innovators, providing deep domain expertise and large-scale computing resources. The AI co-innovation lab is expected to begin operations in South San Francisco early this year, signaling a major step forward in the convergence of artificial intelligence and biomedical discovery.
sOURCE LINK :https://www.lilly.com/
