Nvidia collaborating with Alphabet spinoff on drug discovery tech - Bloomberg News

Investing.com -- Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA) is working with SandboxAQ, a startup spun off from Google-parent Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) last year, to expand the volume of chemical reactions that companies can simulate in order to help develop new materials for drugs and batteries, according to Bloomberg News.

Citing a statement from SandboxAQ Chairman Eric Schmidt, Bloomberg said that Nvidia's "accelerated computing and quantum platforms" will augment its own artificial intelligence simulation capabilities.

Schmidt added that this will "help enable the creation of new materials and chemical compounds that will transform industries and address some of the world’s biggest challenges," Bloomberg reported.

Along with cybersecurity services, SandboxAQ has said its software can also be employed to aid the development of drugs and materials.

SandboxAQ Chief Executive Officer Jack Hidary told Bloomberg that the company's collaboration with Nvidia -- and the AI chipmaker's powerful A100 and H200 graphics processors -- may yield applications in a range of fields like medicine, financial services and energy.

Earlier this year, Hidary told Reuters that AI chips have become powerful enough to compute some of the quantum algorithms that fuel SandboxAQ's software. The simulation does not currently need quantum computers to work, Hidary said to the news agency.

Quantum computers are powered by processors that are based on quantum physics, or the study of matter and energy on an extremely small scale. An error-free quantum computer, which would be capable of processing information millions of times quicker than even supercomputers, has yet to emerge despite recent investment from both companies and governments.

The report comes a day before Nvidia, which has become a focal point of a surge in enthusiasm over AI, is due to report its latest quarterly results. Shares in the semiconductor group were marginally higher in early U.S. trading on Monday.