NEW YORK, Jan 12, 2026, 10:43 a.m. ET — Regular session
Nvidia (NVDA.O), the world’s most valuable listed company, and Eli Lilly (LLY.N) said on Monday they will spend $1 billion over five years on a joint research lab in the San Francisco Bay Area, betting Nvidia’s next Vera Rubin AI chips can speed drug discovery. Nvidia shares were down 0.2% at $184.42 by 10:30 a.m. ET. 1
The move gives Nvidia another lane to sell chips and software as investors debate how long the AI spending surge by Big Tech can stay at full tilt. For Lilly, it is part of a broader push to use models and automation to spot promising molecules faster and cut expensive dead ends.
The timing is awkward for risk assets. U.S. stocks slid on renewed worries about the Federal Reserve’s independence after fresh pressure on Chair Jerome Powell, and Jordan Rizzuto, CIO at GammaRoad Capital Partners, called it “another dent to the armor” for markets. 2
Nvidia, for its part, used the healthcare crowd to talk software, not just silicon. The company said it expanded its BioNeMo platform for biology and drug discovery, including new models such as RNAPro for RNA structure prediction and ReaSyn v2, aimed at making AI-designed drugs easier to synthesize in real labs — a “lab-in-the-loop” approach that feeds experiment results back into the model. 3
Thermo Fisher Scientific is also in the mix, saying it will work with Nvidia to make instruments and labs more autonomous, with AI agents — software that can plan and take actions across steps — helping orchestrate experiments and quality checks. Thermo Fisher executive vice president Gianluca Pettitti called the pairing of AI and automation a way to change how scientific work gets done. 4
In a briefing described by Fierce Biotech, Nvidia healthcare chief Kimberly Powell said the partners expect to open a Bay Area site by the end of March, with teams co-located. She said both companies were putting in dedicated, “incremental” resources. 5
For traders, the next read-through may come from Taiwan rather than San Francisco. TSMC, a key supplier to Nvidia, is expected to post a 27% jump in fourth-quarter net profit to T$475.2 billion, and investors are watching its guidance for hints on the pace of AI server demand. Shay Boloor, chief market strategist at Futurum Equities, said AI demand is “clearly accelerating,” while flagging margin risks tied to faster overseas fab buildouts. 6
TSMC said its fourth-quarter 2025 earnings conference is scheduled for Thursday, Jan. 15, at 1:00 p.m. Eastern Time. Guidance there often lands as a proxy for near-term appetite for the high-end chips that power AI servers. 7
Before that, the U.S. inflation print is the nearer tripwire. The Labor Department is due to release the December consumer price index on Tuesday at 8:30 a.m. ET, a data point that can swing rate expectations — and growth-stock multiples — quickly. 8
Nvidia lagged some chip peers on the day: Advanced Micro Devices rose about 2.1% and Broadcom gained 0.7%, while Intel slipped 0.5%.
But the downside case is still familiar. Earlier this month, Reuters reported Nvidia tightened sales terms for its China-focused H200 chips, asking customers to pay upfront as regulators weighed how many domestic chips buyers should take alongside each order — another reminder that policy and geopolitics can land on the order book without warning. 9
The next few sessions bring catalysts that can swamp product headlines: Tuesday’s CPI report and TSMC’s results on Thursday. Traders will also watch for any follow-on commitments out of the JPMorgan healthcare meetings that put a clearer dollar figure on Nvidia’s life-sciences push. 10
