- Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA) expanded its BioNeMo platform with new models, tools and data-processing libraries aimed at connecting AI systems directly with laboratory experimentation in drug discovery and life sciences research
- Eli Lilly and Nvidia announced a US$1 billion AI co‑innovation lab, combining Lilly’s scientific expertise with Nvidia’s computing and AI infrastructure to develop large‑scale biological and chemical models
- Thermo Fisher and Nvidia formed a partnership to integrate full‑stack AI computing into scientific instruments, with the goal of enabling autonomous, edge‑to‑cloud laboratory workflows
- Nvidia stock (NASDAQ:NVDA) opened trading at US$183.22
At the J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference, Nvidia unveiled a major expansion of its BioNeMo platform and detailed two new collaborations with Eli Lilly and Thermo Fisher Scientific, signaling a broader push to embed AI across drug discovery, laboratory automation and scientific research.
Nvidia expands BioNeMo for AI-driven biology
Nvidia said the expanded BioNeMo platform is intended to support “lab‑in‑the‑loop” development—linking wet‑lab experimentation with AI model training, deployment and optimization. The company framed BioNeMo as an end-to-end development environment to help life science organizations process large quantities of biological and chemical data, which industry analysts estimate contribute to roughly US$300 billion in annual R&D expenditures.
The update introduces several new components, including:
- Clara open models, such as RNAPro for RNA structure prediction and ReaSyn v2 for assessing whether AI‑proposed drug candidates can be synthesized in practice.
- BioNeMo Recipes, designed to streamline foundation model training and customization.
- GPU‑accelerated data processing tools, including nvMolKit for cheminformatics.
Nvidia said these additions are geared toward creating continuous learning systems that allow experiments, data generation and model development to iteratively inform each other.
“Biology and drug discovery are reaching their transformer moments,” Kimberly Powell, vice president of healthcare at Nvidia said in a news release. “BioNeMo turns experimental data into usable intelligence for AI, so every experiment informs the next. This creates a continuous learning cycle that speeds up discovery and helps researchers build new frontier models to tackle some of biology’s toughest challenges.”
Lilly and Nvidia form US$1 billion AI co‑innovation lab
Eli Lilly and Nvidia also announced a joint AI co‑innovation lab to be built in the San Francisco Bay Area. The companies plan to invest up to US$1 billion over five years in personnel, infrastructure and compute resources.
The lab will combine Lilly scientists and domain experts with Nvidia engineers to develop large‑scale biological and chemical AI models using BioNeMo as the primary platform. It will also connect Lilly’s automated wet labs with computational modeling environments to enable round‑the‑clock AI‑assisted experimentation.
The initiative builds on Lilly’s existing AI supercomputer, based on Nvidia DGX systems, which the company previously described as the most powerful in the pharmaceutical industry. Lilly said it expects to use next‑generation Nvidia architectures, including Vera Rubin, to support future large‑model development in drug discovery, manufacturing, medical imaging and supply‑chain optimization.
“AI is transforming every industry, and its most profound impact will be in life sciences,” Jensen Huang, Nvidia’s founder and CEO added in another media statement. “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.”
Thermo Fisher and Nvidia target autonomous scientific labs
In a separate announcement, Thermo Fisher Scientific detailed a multi‑year partnership with Nvidia intended to advance autonomous laboratory infrastructure.
The companies plan to integrate Nvidia’s full AI computing stack with Thermo Fisher instruments, focusing on:
- Edge‑to‑cloud orchestration using the Nvidia DGX Spark desktop supercomputer.
- Multi‑agent AI workflows built with the Nvidia NeMo software suite, capable of generating experimental protocols, executing them and performing quality control.
- Real‑time analysis of instrument output using BioNeMo tools.
Thermo Fisher said the collaboration aims to convert research labs into scalable “data factories,” reducing the need for continuous human supervision.
Growing ecosystem of AI‑Driven research tools
Nvidia highlighted a range of biotech and AI research companies using BioNeMo, NeMo or other components of its developer ecosystem. These include Basecamp Research, Boltz PBC, Chai Discovery, Natera, Dyno Therapeutics, OpenFold, Terray Therapeutics and others working on molecular design, genetic engineering, biomolecular modeling and related areas.
Several organizations are also using Nvidia’s robotics and simulation tools—such as Isaac Sim, Isaac GR00T and Omniverse—to create digital twins, train lab robots or test automated systems before deploying them in physical facilities. Participants span early‑stage startups to major pharmaceutical manufacturers including Amgen and Roche.
Industry context
The announcements come as pharmaceutical and life‑science companies increasingly invest in AI models that can interpret complex biological data, generate new molecular candidates and design automated experimental workflows. Companies in the field have said such technologies could shorten discovery timelines, reduce costs and enable more adaptive experimental cycles, though many of these systems remain in early deployment stages.
Nvidia and Lilly said work at the co‑innovation lab is expected to begin later this year, following build‑out of the facility in South San Francisco.
This comes during an increasingly strained global chip supply, driven mostly by the rapid construction of AI‑focused data centres. Demand for high‑bandwidth memory and advanced GPUs has surged as hyperscalers race to build large‑scale AI infrastructure, prompting manufacturers to shift production capacity away from consumer‑grade chips toward data centre components. Analysts warn that this reallocation has created widespread shortages, with prices rising sharply and production capacity already oversubscribed into 2026. This same infrastructure boom has led major cloud providers to lock in long‑term, high‑volume semiconductor contracts, intensifying competition for limited supply and further tightening bottlenecks across the industry. As Nvidia deepens its role in AI‑powered drug discovery and autonomous laboratory systems, these initiatives will continue to draw on the same constrained pool of advanced memory and compute components that underpin the global chip shortage.
About Nvidia
Nvidia Corp. is a full-stack computing infrastructure company.
Nvidia stock (NASDAQ:NVDA) opened trading at US$183.22 and is up nearly 40 per cent since this time last year.
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