Swiss pharmaceutical giant Roche announced today it is launching a large-scale “AI factory” based on thousands of the latest Nvidia chips, Forbes reports. The company has installed 2,176 chips from the American technology company based on the Blackwell architecture, which will be deployed across its sites in the U.S. and Europe. The investment is aimed at accelerating the development of drugs and diagnostics.
Including previous purchases, the company’s total fleet of AI chips has reached 3,500 units. Roche claims this is the largest number owned by any pharmaceutical company in the world.
The new infrastructure will significantly accelerate research processes across all R&D divisions, including molecular modeling, data analysis, and conducting clinical trials. This is critically important amid growing competition to reduce drug time-to-market.
Roche, known in the U.S. for its subsidiary, the biotech corporation Genentech, is continuing its large-scale implementation of artificial intelligence. Genentech, which developed oncology drugs such as Herceptin and Avastin, serves as a key center of competence for the holding company. With Roche’s annual revenue at $78 billion (at current exchange rates), the company declined to disclose its exact investment in AI infrastructure.
However, according to Aviv Regev, executive vice president and head of research at Genentech, it is “a substantial sum, which highlights how important AI is for our business.” Given the cost of a single Nvidia Blackwell accelerator (between $30,000 and $40,000, according to Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang), Roche’s total investment in purchasing 2,176 chips is estimated at $65–87 million.
Modern “AI factories” are becoming a new scientific tool, enabling a shift from trial and error to more targeted drug design. Roche’s announcement follows that of another pharmaceutical giant, the American company Eli Lilly, which earlier this year partnered with Nvidia on the creation of a $1 billion AI innovation lab in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Eli Lilly announced the launch of a supercomputer, created in partnership with the technology giant, to accelerate drug research and development. According to the developers, the presented NVIDIA DGX SuperPOD, equipped with DGX B300 systems, is unparalleled globally.