NVIDIA and Eli Lilly and Company have unveiled their partnership to create an AI Joint Innovation Lab. This collaboration is set to harness the power of artificial intelligence to tackle the hurdles faced by the pharmaceutical sector. The lab will be situated in the San Francisco Bay Area, operating under a co-located office setup. Both entities are committed to a joint investment of up to US$1 billion over the forthcoming five years.

The lab's infrastructure will be constructed utilizing NVIDIA's BioNeMo platform and Vera Rubin architecture. A key priority will be the exploration of robotics and embodied AI (physical AI) applications, with the goal of expediting drug discovery and production workflows. Initially, the collaboration will center on building continuous learning systems that seamlessly integrate Eli Lilly's intelligent wet laboratories with computational dry laboratories. This will involve the development of models tailored to the realms of biology and chemistry. Furthermore, both partners will delve into the potential of artificial intelligence in clinical development and other related domains. The lab is slated to officially kick off its operations in South San Francisco in the early part of this year.