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 are usually slow and expensive, and preclinical stages can take several years. However, in the world we live in, more and more pharmaceutical companies are betting on advanced technologies that allow them to accelerate the transition from molecular modeling to synthesis pathways.

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

Gefion, a powerful supercomputer at Novo Nordisk’s disposal

DGX SuperPOD data centers provide solutions as if it were a home.”turnkey”, which allow customers to access high-performance computing without much complexity. The project includes not only access to equipment from the company led by Jensen Huang, but also various software solutions that allow researchers to get started on research.

Eviden, the company responsible for assembling the supercomputer, has stated that Gefion is destined to become one of the most powerful AI teams in the world (and at the time of writing, it is the most powerful supercomputer in Denmark). According to them, important aspects aimed at ensuring sustainability were taken into account when implementing the project. For example, it runs on 100% renewable energy.

Gefion, which integrates 65 kilometers of cables and weighs about 30 tons, was symbolically connected by NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang; King Frederik of Denmark and DCAI CEO Nadja Carlsten at an event held last Wednesday in Copenhagen.

The Danish Center for Artificial Intelligence Innovation (DCAI) will be responsible for the management and operation of this new Danish supercomputer. While Novo Nordisk is expected to take advantage of Gefion’s capabilities, the supercomputer is not entirely its property. DCAI is funded by Novo Nordisk Foundation (about 80 million euros) and the Danish Export and Investment Fund (about 13.4 million euros).

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

It should be noted that Gefion will not be used solely to achieve success in the pharmaceutical world. DCAI says it is committed to advancing research “across all sectors.” The hardware and software of this supercomputer seem to have everything needed to develop engineering projects. quantum computing, biotechnology and energy. Below we will see some of the most notable supercomputer pilot projects.

The University of Copenhagen will work on large-scale distributed simulations of quantum algorithms to quantify molecular recognition processes. The Danish Meteorological Institute will follow the path of atmospheric forecasting using smart environmental networks. The Technical University of Denmark will use the supercomputer to develop multimodal genomic framework models.

Images | Danish Artificial Intelligence Innovation Center/Novo Nordisk Foundation (1, 2) | NVIDIA

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