NVIDIA and Lilly launch $1B AI lab to transform drug discovery and manufacturing

NVIDIA and Eli Lilly have announced a joint AI co-innovation lab to accelerate drug discovery and pharma innovation, committing up to $1 billion over five years.

The lab, based in South San Francisco, brings together Lilly’s pharmaceutical R&D expertise and NVIDIA’s AI and compute infrastructure to build next-generation foundation models using NVIDIA BioNeMo™.

The initiative will co-locate domain scientists and AI engineers to create a continuous learning system linking Lilly’s wet labs and dry labs for 24/7 AI-assisted experimentation. The goal is to use large-scale data and compute to shorten the drug development cycle and improve molecule identification and validation.

NVIDIA founder Jensen Huang called the lab a “blueprint for drug discovery”, enabling scientists to explore vast chemical spaces in silico. Lilly CEO David Ricks said the partnership could “reinvent drug discovery” by combining Lilly’s proprietary data with NVIDIA’s model-building capabilities.

The collaboration expands Lilly’s prior investments in AI, including the launch of its AI factory and supercomputer. The lab will leverage NVIDIA Vera Rubin architecture and use digital twins, robotics, and agentic AI to optimize manufacturing, supply chains, and clinical operations.

Lilly’s TuneLab platform will integrate NVIDIA Clara™ open foundation models for biotech partners, while NVIDIA’s Inception program will support ecosystem startups with access to compute and technical guidance.