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Nvidia stock traded largely flat on Monday, showing little reaction to news of a major new partnership with Eli Lilly, as investors remained focused on the chipmaker’s prospects in China and the broader health of the artificial intelligence sector.

Nvidia stock was up modestly in Monday trading and has fallen about 1.8% over the past month.

The recent drift comes despite a steady stream of announcements around robotics, autonomous driving, and AI software unveiled at the CES technology trade show, which failed to reignite momentum in the shares.

$1 billion AI lab targets drug discovery

Nvidia said on Monday that it will partner with Eli Lilly (LLY) to fund a new artificial intelligence research lab, committing up to $1 billion over five years.

The lab, to be based in the San Francisco Bay Area, will focus on building advanced AI models for biology and chemistry aimed at accelerating drug discovery.

The facility will bring together Lilly experts in biology, science, and medicine alongside Nvidia’s AI engineers and model builders.

The goal is to use large-scale computing and AI to explore biological and chemical spaces digitally before physical molecules are developed.

“Nvidia and Lilly are bringing together the best of our industries to invent a new blueprint for drug discovery — one where scientists can explore vast biological and chemical spaces in silico before a single molecule is made,” Nvidia Chief Executive Jensen Huang said in a statement.

Market attention stays on core AI chip business

Investors continue to view Nvidia primarily through the lens of its dominance in AI chips, particularly those used in data centres and large-scale model training and inference.

Progress in that core business — rather than partnerships in adjacent areas — remains the key driver of the stock.

“Throughout meetings and keynote presentations [at CES], management teams repeatedly emphasized that AI-related demand remains robust and supported by customer spending,” wrote Truist Securities analyst William Stein in a research note.

Stein added that Nvidia described demand as strong across hyperscalers, neocloud providers, sovereign customers, and China, particularly for its H200 chip.

Any concrete sign that Chinese customers are resuming or accelerating purchases of the H200 could act as a catalyst for Nvidia shares.

Huang said at CES that demand for the H200, which is designed to serve China’s AI market under US export rules, is “very high” and that he does not expect problems from Chinese regulators.

Nvidia already has orders for more than two million H200 chips at a face value of about $27,000 each, implying potential revenue of roughly $54 billion, according to a prior Reuters report.

However, Reuters has also reported that Chinese authorities have asked some technology companies to pause orders while they assess how many domestically produced chips should be purchased alongside Nvidia hardware.

Analysts remain broadly bullish on Nvidia stock

Several Wall Street firms reiterated positive views on Nvidia despite the recent share-price stagnation.

Baird maintained an Outperform rating with a $275 price target, pointing to Nvidia’s central role in building global AI ecosystems.

The firm argued that the complexity of Nvidia’s software, tools, and platforms strengthens customer adoption and creates a “tremendous barrier of entry” that remains underappreciated by investors.

Baird added that industry checks suggest Nvidia will maintain its leadership position even as AI inference workloads grow meaningfully in the coming years.

Bernstein also named Nvidia and Broadcom among its top picks, saying AI spending shows no signs of slowing and that current valuations appear attractive.

Analyst Stacy Rasgon said Nvidia continues to pull ahead of competitors, with Bernstein favouring Nvidia’s roadmap over rivals such as AMD.

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