Nvidia invests $50 million in biotech company Recursion for AI drug discovery

Chipmaker Nvidia volition put $50 cardinal successful Recursion Pharmaceuticals to velocity up the improvement of the biotech firm's artificial quality models for cause discovery, the companies said Wednesday. 

Recursion's banal soared 80% pursuing the announcement. Shares of Nvidia, which person helped to substance banal marketplace gains this twelvemonth amid hopes astir its AI computing chips, roseate much than 2%. 

Recursion uses AI-powered models to place and plan caller therapies, and offers those models to different drugmakers, including Roche and Bayer.

Salt Lake City, Utah-based Recursion volition usage its biologic and chemic datasets exceeding 23,000 terabytes to bid its AI models connected Nvidia's unreality platform. AI models usually necessitate immense amounts of data, typically measured successful terabytes, to bid them.

Nvidia tin past perchance licence those AI models connected BioNeMo, the company's unreality work for generative AI successful cause find that it rolled retired earlier this year. 

Recursion expects to usage BioNeMo to enactment its interior cause pipeline and those of its existent and aboriginal partners. Recursion is conducting quality trials for 5 of its drugs.

"Our collaboration with NVIDIA represents 2 best-in-class companies coming unneurotic to assistance lick 1 of the world's astir hard challenges, cause discovery," Recursion CEO Chris Gibson said successful the release. 

Nvidia's concern is the latest illustration of the AI frenzy making its mode into the pharmaceutical industry. Drugmakers are progressively recognizing AI's imaginable to get life-saving treatments to radical faster. 

Moderna said successful April that it volition harness the power of AI to beforehand the company's messenger RNA technology, which is utilized successful Covid vaccines. A period later, Google Cloud launched 2 caller AI-powered tools that purpose to assistance biotech and pharmaceutical companies accelerate cause discovery.

Nvidia, which produces chips utilized to powerfulness artificial intelligence, is seen arsenic a large victor successful the AI boom.

The institution reached a trillion-dollar marketplace worth for the archetypal clip successful June, portion of the much than 200% summation successful the stock's terms since the opening of this twelvemonth connected the backmost of dense request for AI.

The concern successful Recursion lone deepens Nvidia's stake successful the fashionable technology. 

The announcement besides comes arsenic Recursion strengthens its absorption connected AI. The institution successful May acquired 2 companies successful the AI-driven cause find abstraction for $87.5 million. 

Other AI-driven drugmakers besides traded higher connected Wednesday pursuing the announcement. 

Exscientia soared arsenic overmuch arsenic 12%, portion AbCellera Biologics jumped much than 13%.

– CNBC's Benjamin Taubman contributed to this report.