Swiss drugmaker Roche said on Monday it has significantly increased its artificial intelligence computing capacity by deploying 2,176 Nvidia Blackwell graphics processing units (GPUs) at sites in the United States and Europe.
The company said the added hardware will accelerate work across its research and development operations - including modelling, data analysis and clinical trial processes. Roche described the deployment as giving it the largest GPU footprint in the industry.
Roche said the build-up of GPUs began in 2023 and is part of a broader collaboration with Nvidia. The drugmaker has been increasing its investment in AI tools as large pharmaceutical groups compete to cut development timelines and reduce costs.
"In healthcare, time is the most critical variable," Chief Digital and Technology Officer Wafaa Mamilli said.
The firm positioned the expansion as a tactical move to speed R&D work across multiple stages of drug and diagnostics development. Roche highlighted modelling and data analysis capabilities as direct beneficiaries of the enhanced compute environment, and cited clinical trial processes as another area expected to gain efficiency from the additional GPUs.
The announcement also referenced industry-wide interest in AI. The company noted that drugmakers have been announcing a range of deals for tools intended to leverage artificial intelligence, which is widely viewed within the sector as a major technological development. The article included a consultancy projection that agentic AI - systems requiring minimal human intervention - could raise clinical development productivity by roughly 35% to 45% over the next five years.
Roche framed the GPU expansion as both an operational upgrade and a component of its longer-running partnership with Nvidia, stressing that the investment is intended to support faster, more data-driven development of new treatments and diagnostics.
Sectors affected: Pharmaceuticals, biotechnology, healthcare technology, and semiconductor suppliers of AI chips.