Eli Lilly announced a partnership with chipmaker NVIDIA on Tuesday to build what it claims will be the "most powerful supercomputer owned and operated by a pharmaceutical company." The collaboration represents a significant technology investment aimed at harnessing artificial intelligence's potential for drug discovery and maintaining U.S. leadership in biomedical innovation.
Strategic Partnership for AI Leadership
"We want to help ensure that America wins the AI race," said NVIDIA's health care lead, Kimberly Powell, in an interview. "One of the most essential industries for any nation is health care, and we need to continue to lead the world in biomedical discoveries," she added, pointing to Lilly as a global leader in discovering medicines.
Lilly's chief information and digital officer, Diogo Rau, echoed Powell's sentiment, stating, "We at Lilly want to make sure that the U.S. wins the medicines race."
Leveraging Decades of Data for AI-Driven Discovery
The partnership builds on Lilly's extensive data heritage accumulated over 150 years of operations. "Lilly's mission is to make life better for people around the world, and today that requires excellence not just in science but also in technology," said Diogo Rau, executive vice president and chief information and digital officer at Lilly. "I don't believe any other company in our industry is doing what we do at this scale. As a 150-year-old medicine company, one of our most powerful assets is decades of data. With purpose-built AI models and AI, we can set a new scientific standard that accelerates innovation to deliver medicines to more patients, faster."
Transforming Scientific Discovery Methods
The collaboration represents a fundamental shift in how pharmaceutical research is conducted. "The AI industrial revolution will have its most profound impact on medicine, transforming how we understand biology," said Kimberly Powell, vice president of health care at NVIDIA. "Modern AI factories are becoming the new instrument of science — enabling the shift from trial-and-error discovery to a more intentional design of medicines. With its deep scientific heritage and commitment to innovation, Lilly stands as a global leader at the forefront of this new era of medical discovery."
AI as Scientific Collaborator
Thomas Fuchs, senior vice president and chief AI officer at Lilly, described the company's evolving approach to artificial intelligence integration. "Lilly is shifting from using AI as a tool to embracing it as a scientific collaborator," said Fuchs. "By embedding intelligence into every layer of our workflows, we're opening the door to a new kind of enterprise: one that learns, adapts and improves with every data point. This isn't just about speed, but rather interrogating biology at scale, deepening our understanding of disease and translating that knowledge into meaningful advances for people served by Lilly medicines as well as the broader life sciences ecosystem."
