Eli Lilly and Company and NVIDIA have unveiled a first-of-its-kind artificial intelligence co-innovation lab, marking one of the largest investments yet in AI drug discovery. This strategic partnership, announced at the J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference this month, involves a joint investment of up to $1bn over five years, dedicated to talent, infrastructure and advanced research aimed at solving the most complex bottlenecks in the pharmaceutical industry.
Based in the South San Francisco biotech hub, the lab will co-locate Lilly’s biological and medical experts with NVIDIA’s elite AI engineers. The unique alignment of skillsets is designed to foster a closed-loop discovery engine that integrates Lilly’s autonomous wet labs with computational dry labs. This system will power 24/7 AI-assisted experimentation where lab results and computational models constantly update each other to find and validate new molecules. This approach aims to reduce the time needed to move from a hypothesis to a tested drug candidate.
The facility’s technical backbone will be powered by the NVIDIA BioNeMo AI platform and its next-generation Vera Rubin-based computing architecture. Beyond early-stage research and development, the collaboration will harness physical AI – AI embedded in physical systems such as robots – to optimise clinical development and manufacturing. Using the NVIDIA Omniverse, Lilly also intends to develop digital twins of its manufacturing lines, enabling supply chains to be stress-tested and optimised in virtual environments before physical deployment.
“AI is transforming every industry, and its most profound impact will be in life sciences,” explains Jensen Huang, Founder and CEO, NVIDIA. “NVIDIA and Lilly are bringing together the best of our industries to invent a new blueprint for drug discovery –one where scientists can explore vast biological and chemical spaces in silico before a single molecule is made.”
David Ricks, Chair and CEO, Eli Lilly, adds: “Combining our volume of data and scientific knowledge with NVIDIA’s computational power and model-building expertise could reinvent drug discovery as we know it.”
The lab is expected to begin operations in early 2026, serving as a catalyst for a new era of AI-driven medicine.
