Eli Lilly and NVIDIA are teaming up to deploy a 1,000+ GPU AI supercomputer to transform drug discovery, clinical development and manufacturing.
"I don't believe any other company in our industry is doing what we do at this scale,” said Diogo Rau, Executive VP and Chief Information and Digital Officer at Lilly. “We can set a new scientific standard that accelerates innovation to deliver medicines to more patients, faster.”
The system will run on 100 % renewable electricity and leverage Lilly’s chilled-water infrastructure for liquid cooling, aligning with Lilly’s sustainability commitments to achieve carbon neutrality by 2030.
The infrastructure includes more than 1,000 DGX B300 GPUs connected via a high-speed unified fabric, enabling large-scale data processing for molecular modelling, imaging and manufacturing simulations.
Accelerating drug discovery
Lilly will add the system to its “AI factory,” a platform integrating artificial intelligence into drug discovery, development, and manufacturing workflows.
"Modern AI factories are becoming the new instrument of science, enabling the shift from trial-and-error discovery to a more intentional design of medicines,” Kimberly Powell, VP of Healthcare at NVIDIA
The supercomputer will allow scientists to train AI models on millions of experiments, streamline clinical development and enhance manufacturing efficiency.
The platform will also support imaging-based biomarker development, offering new avenues for personalised care.
For cleanroom and controlled-environment operations, the system would enable integration of digital twins, AI-driven imaging and data-driven process optimisation directly into facility and production management.
Real-time monitoring and predictive modelling could improve quality control and operational efficiency.
Lilly may eventually use federated AI platforms like TuneLab to connect its sites.
Federated AI lets models learn from data stored in different locations without moving the data, so each site keeps its information private.
TuneLab would combine insights from multiple labs and factories, helping Lilly improve manufacturing, quality control and research while making faster, data-driven decisions across the company.