Explainer: why Roche’s supercomputer is a big deal

Pharma companies are racing to acquire microchips and achieve the most powerful AI capacity in the industry. Experts say it’s encouraging for future drug development but bottlenecks remain. Swiss drug manufacturer Roche announced last week that it would expand its collaboration with semiconductor giant Nvidia and become the pharmaceutical company with the largest graphics processing unit (GPU) footprint across the industry. GPUs are microchips made of semiconductors that can handle large calculations simultaneously, making their compute capacity key to complex AI models. Roche’s deal comes on the back of a multi-year research collaboration struck in November 2023 between its American subsidiary Genentech and Nvidia. Both companies had vowed to accelerate new drug discoveries and delivery thanks to a next-generation AI platform. The deal comes as pharma companies race to integrate AI into their workflows and drug development. Two other pharma giants, Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly, made ...