New York, January 12, 2026, 12:53 EST — Regular session underway.
Nvidia shares climbed roughly 0.8% Monday following news the chipmaker and Eli Lilly plan to pour up to $1 billion into an AI lab designed to accelerate drug discovery over the next five years. Nvidia closed at $186.37, while Lilly edged up about 0.2% to $1,066.14. Reuters
Wall Street is leaning back into the AI trade that powered last year’s rally, even as investors prepare for Tuesday’s U.S. inflation report and the kick-off of major bank earnings. The S&P 500 hovered near record levels with little movement, while the Nasdaq edged up, buoyed by gains in AI-focused stocks. Reuters
Nvidia’s message is clear: AI workloads are expanding. Drugmakers increasingly rely on large models—software trained on massive datasets—to speed up the hunt for new molecules and run more experiments while cutting down on failures.
Nvidia and Lilly announced a new Bay Area lab that will leverage Nvidia’s BioNeMo drug-discovery platform alongside its upcoming Vera Rubin architecture. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang called AI’s potential influence on life sciences “the most profound impact.” Lilly CEO David Ricks added the collaboration “could reinvent drug discovery as we know it.” NVIDIA Newsroom
Nvidia also revealed updates to its BioNeMo platform, introducing new open models like RNAPro, aimed at predicting RNA structures, and ReaSyn v2, which the company says helps determine if AI-designed molecules can realistically be synthesized in the lab. “BioNeMo turns experimental data into usable intelligence for AI,” stated Kimberly Powell, Nvidia’s vice president of healthcare. Gianluca Pettitti, Thermo Fisher’s executive vice president, added that “artificial intelligence coupled with laboratory automation will transform how scientific work is performed.” NVIDIA Newsroom
Shares of other chipmakers involved in AI infrastructure climbed. AMD added around 3.2%, Broadcom ticked up about 1.6%, while Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co, listed in the U.S., rose nearly 1.4%.
TSMC is set to release its earnings on Thursday, Jan. 15, with a call at 0600 GMT. Investors will zero in on its forecast for AI accelerator demand — those chips critical for training and running AI models. Analysts are forecasting a 27% jump in Q4 net profit. IDC’s Galen Zeng pointed to the “explosive growth” in the AI server accelerator market as the “main driver.” Futurum Equities strategist Shay Boloor added that AI demand is “clearly accelerating.” Reuters
Nvidia faces its next major hurdle closer to home, with fourth-quarter fiscal 2026 earnings set for Feb. 25. Investors will be watching closely for updates on data-center demand and the pace at which the company plans to roll out new products. NVIDIA Investor Relations
The Lilly collaboration is a slow burn, making it tough to connect near-term revenue with a five-year lab strategy. Nvidia’s stock remains sensitive to fundamentals — AI spending trends, supply chain issues, and whether macroeconomic reports and earnings convince investors to stay bullish on growth.
The next key events for AI hardware stocks are TSMC’s guidance on Thursday and Nvidia’s earnings report set for Feb. 25.
