The company behind Ozempic now has a colossal supercomputer from NVIDIA. Their mission: discover new drugs

We are witnessing how artificial intelligence (AI) is driving the creation of new drugs. Traditional processes They are usually slow and expensivewith preclinical stages that can extend for several years. In the world we live in, however, more and more pharmaceutical companies are betting on advanced technologies, which allow them to accelerate from the simulation of molecules to the generation of synthesis pathways.

Novo Nordisk, the Danish firm behind Ozempic, now has at its disposal a valuable tool that can help it develop new medicines. We are talking about “Gefion”, a supercomputer equipped with 1,528 NVIDIA H100 Tensor Core GPUs and interconnected using NVIDIA Quantum-2 InfiniBand networks. This is a type of high performance machine of the type NVIDIA DGX SuperPOD. Let’s see.

Gefion, a powerful supercomputer at the disposal of Novo Nordisk

As if it were a home, DGX SuperPOD data centers are solutions “turnkey”, which allow customers to access high-performance computing without too many complications. The project not only includes access to the hardware of the company led by Jensen Huang, but also different software solutions that allow researchers to get to work on research.

Eviden, the company in charge of assembling the supercomputer, has said that Gefion is set to be one of the most powerful AI teams in the world (and at the time of writing is the most powerful supercomputer in Denmark). When carrying out the project, they say, important aspects that aim to promote sustainability have been taken into account. For example, it runs on 100% renewable energy.

Gefion, which brings together 65 kilometers of cables and weighs around 30 tons, was symbolically connected by NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang; King Frederick of Denmark, and the CEO of DCAI, Nadia Carlsten, at an event held last Wednesday in Copenhagen.

Jensen Huang, CEO of NVIDIA; King Frederick of Denmark, and Nadia Carlsten, CEO of DCAI

The Danish Center for AI Innovation (DCAI) will be in charge of managing and operating this new Danish supercomputer. While Novo Nordisk is expected to take advantage of Gefion’s capabilities, the supercomputer is not entirely owned by it. DCAI is funded by both the Novo Nordisk Foundation (about 80 million euros) and the Danish Export and Investment Fund (about 13.4 million euros).

NVIDIA H100 Grace Hopper

As we can see, this is a public-private initiative that could help Denmark stay on the path of innovation. Novo Nordisk, for its part, is the most valuable listed company in Europe. In terms of market capitalization, it surpasses other giants such as LVMH, a group led by Bernard Arnault, and ASML, the Dutch firm that manufactures advanced machines for manufacturing semiconductors.

Gefion, it should be noted, will not be used solely to make advances in the pharmaceutical world. DCAI ensures that seeks to promote research “across all industries.” The hardware and software of this supercomputer seem to have what is necessary to develop engineering projects. quantum computing, biotechnology and energy. Below we will see some of the pilot projects highlights for the supercomputer.

The University of Copenhagen will work on a large-scale distributed simulation of quantum algorithms to quantify molecular recognition processes. The Danish Meteorological Institute will follow the path of atmospheric predictions with smart environmental networks. The Technical University of Denmark will use the supercomputer to advance multimodal genomic foundation models.

Images | Danish Center for AI Innovation/Novo Nordisk Foundation (1, 2) | NVIDIA

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