Nanyang Biologics accelerates drug discovery by 68%

AI-ready infrastructure helps Nanyang Biologics speed innovation

Singapore-based Nanyang Biologics harnesses AI to analyze molecules derived from natural compounds and discover their effects on the human body. Currently, only a small fraction of the world’s 300,000+ plant species has been studied for medicinal potential, with each plant containing thousands of unique molecules. 

Equinix AI-ready data centers power the complex, high-density AI workloads for the healthcare company’s Drug-Target Interaction Graph Neural Network (DTIGN) platform, which reduces the time and cost of drug discovery by enabling the company to analyze a library of billions of plant-derived compounds at scale by unlocking the therapeutic potential of plant-derived, bioactive compounds.

Supercharging drug discovery with AI

Creating new drugs requires analyzing hundreds of thousands of molecular compounds, a task humans just can’t handle manually. Identifying viable drug candidates from this vast chemical landscape is often compared to searching for a needle in a haystack.

Nanyang Biologics built its AI-driven DTIGN platform to efficiently screen the more than 300,000 known plant species around the world for pharmaceutical innovation opportunities. The platform predicts how compounds will interact with biological targets, enabling researchers to prioritize the most promising candidates for further testing rather than relying on time-consuming trial-and-error approaches.

Operating the solution requires massively scalable AI infrastructure. “We aim to be the platform of choice for people looking to discover compounds for drugs and other uses,” says Giang Nguyen, CTO of Nanyang Biologics. “AI is the key to efficiently analyzing hundreds of thousands of molecular compounds to identify an ideal target for further drug development. With AI, we can better predict which compounds are most likely to work before moving into lab testing,” Nguyen explains. What’s more, each round of lab validation feeds new data back into the model, allowing DTIGN to continuously improve its prediction accuracy over time.

Building an AI-optimized infrastructure 

DTIGN requires a high-performance, scalable computing environment to analyze the Nanyang Biologics library of two billion natural compounds.

The company turned to Equinix for its AI-ready data centers and global digital ecosystem to future-proof its AI with predictable performance and scalability. With Equinix, Nanyang Biologics can run its AI workloads continuously at scale, screening vast volumes of natural compound data, predicting compound bioactivities accurately and scaling with the increasing complexity of the analyzed molecules, all while maintaining consistent performance. Low-latency, high-speed connectivity allows the platform to efficiently move data between systems and support real-time analysis of complex molecular interactions.

Gateway to a global AI ecosystem

In addition to helping speed up internal drug discovery processes, the Equinix global digital ecosystem provides a gateway for Nanyang Biologics to interconnect with cloud and service providers as well as pharmaceutical companies, genomics organizations and research institutions. These integrations expand the company’s opportunities for innovative research and product development in the future.

Benefits

Reduce time-to-market

AI-powered drug discovery drastically speeds up a critical part of the research process, allowing Nanyang Biologics to bring products to market faster.

Lower-cost, more accurate drug discovery

Leveraging Equinix-hosted AI tools, the company has significantly decreased the cost of the drug discovery process, while also reducing error rates. Continuous model refinement improves prediction accuracy over time, increasing confidence in early-stage discovery decisions.

Collaboration opportunities

High-performance network connections help Nanyang Biologics collaborate with research partners more efficiently. Direct access to a global ecosystem of pharmaceutical companies, research institutions and data providers enables faster, more coordinated innovation.

Unlock new innovation opportunities

Scalable AI infrastructure enables exploration of vast, previously underutilized natural compound libraries, expanding the potential for new therapeutic discoveries.