Eli Lilly, NVIDIA parter to build supercomputer for drug discovery
What's the story
Pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly has announced a partnership with tech titan NVIDIA to create an advanced supercomputer. The state-of-the-art machine will be used in drug discovery, helping to speed up the process of getting new medicines into people's hands. The collaboration is expected to enhance efficiency and cost-effectiveness in the pharmaceutical industry.
Technological advancement
The supercomputer will be owned and operated by Eli Lilly
The NVIDIA DGX SuperPOD system will be owned and operated by Eli Lilly. It will allow the company's scientists to train AI models on millions of experiments, testing potential medicines. This capability is expected to greatly expand the scope of drug discovery efforts at Eli Lilly, making it possible for them to explore new avenues in their research.
AI access
Lilly TuneLab to provide AI models to biotechs
As part of this collaboration, several proprietary AI models will be made available on Lilly TuneLab. This artificial intelligence and machine learning platform gives biotech companies access to drug discovery models trained on years of research data. The federated model is a privacy-preserving approach that lets biotechs leverage Lilly's AI models without directly exposing their or Lilly's proprietary data.
Efficiency boost
Eli Lilly sees broader applications for the supercomputer
Eli Lilly plans to use the supercomputer to shorten drug development cycles, in addition to its use in discovery. The company also sees potential applications of this technology in manufacturing, medical imaging, and enterprise AI agents. "Lilly is shifting from using AI as a tool to embracing it as a scientific collaborator," said Thomas Fuchs, Senior Vice President and Chief AI Officer at Eli Lilly.