Eli Lilly partners with NVIDIA to launch USD1 B AI Co-Innovation Lab to transform drug discovery

USA—Eli Lilly and NVIDIA have announced plans to establish a groundbreaking artificial intelligence co-innovation lab, marking a significant collaboration between pharmaceutical and technology sectors.

The two industry leaders will jointly invest up to USD 1 billion over five years to revolutionize how new medicines reach patients.

The companies unveiled their partnership at the 2026 J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference, which took place from January 12 to 15 in San Francisco.

The new facility will be located in the San Francisco Bay Area, positioning it at the heart of technological innovation.

The lab will bring together Lilly’s biology and scientific experts with NVIDIA’s AI model builders and engineers under one roof.

This unique arrangement allows specialists from both fields to collaborate directly on advancing drug discovery processes.

Kimberly Powell, vice president of healthcare at NVIDIA, explained during a press briefing that the co-innovation lab dedicates itself to achieving accelerated, closed-loop discovery.

The facility will also focus on creating AI models that improve clinical development processes.

Powell further noted that the collaboration extends beyond basic research.

The partnership will explore opportunities to apply artificial intelligence across Lilly’s entire business ecosystem, spanning from manufacturing operations to commercial activities.

This comprehensive approach demonstrates how AI technology can transform multiple aspects of pharmaceutical operations.

David Ricks, CEO of Eli Lilly, emphasized the transformative potential of this alliance.

He stated that combining Lilly’s extensive data volumes and scientific knowledge with NVIDIA’s computational power and model-building expertise could fundamentally reinvent drug discovery.

The pharmaceutical industry currently faces lengthy development timelines and high costs, challenges that AI-powered approaches may help address.

Recent advances in AI and protein modeling have expanded the possibilities in drug design.

Meanwhile, other technologies, such as robotics, continue to streamline various stages of drug development.

These technological breakthroughs create new opportunities for pharmaceutical companies to accelerate their research pipelines.

Citi analysts responded positively to the partnership announcement.

They commented that this strategic alliance aims to fundamentally reinvent drug discovery by converging Lilly’s deep pharmaceutical expertise with NVIDIA’s cutting-edge AI, accelerated computing, and infrastructure capabilities.

Both companies have already demonstrated their commitment to AI-driven drug development.

In October 2025, NVIDIA and Lilly announced they were building a new supercomputer specifically designed to accelerate drug discovery and shorten development cycles.

According to Eli Lilly, the supercomputer utilizes more than one thousand graphics processing units (GPUs).

The system serves as an “AI factory,” functioning as a computing infrastructure that manages the entire AI lifecycle from data processing to model deployment.

NVIDIA also revealed another major collaboration at the J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference 2026.

The technology company announced it is working with Thermo Fisher Scientific to build an autonomous lab infrastructure.

This partnership aims to transform traditional scientific research laboratories into scalable, automated data factories that can operate with minimal human intervention.

On the same day that Lilly announced its NVIDIA partnership, the pharmaceutical company generated additional headlines.

Media reports linked the drugmaker to a potential USD15 billion acquisition of Abivax, a French biotechnology company that develops anti-inflammatory drugs.