9 major R&D moves this week: NVIDIA expands, Google targets 500M Gemini users, plus J&J’s $15B bid and more

Welcome to our weekly briefing on R&D headlines that are shaping technology, healthcare, and industry. In this edition, we explore NVIDIA’s global expansion plans (plus a sharp rebuttal to new U.S. AI policy), Google’s ambitious Gemini user goals, a big-ticket pharma acquisition, tighter U.S. chip controls, and more. Keep reading for the latest developments and a snapshot of how top R&D firms are faring in the market.

AI & technology

1. Nvidia expands its global R&D presence

NVIDIA, Santa Clara, California, announced last week that it is planning to set up its Asian headquarters in Taipei, Taiwan and will hire more than 2,500 staff as part of the move. The company also stated that it will establish its Asian R&D center in Kaohsiung. The company also announced that it will expand its R&D operations in Israel and build a new 10,000 square meter artificial intelligence (AI) research and engineering data center which will go into production by June 2025. The Israel facility will be powered by hundreds of liquid-cooled Blackwell and Grace Blackwell Superchip–based systems.

Additionally, NVIDIA’s Vice President of Government Affairs, Ned Finkle, released a statement last week criticizing the Biden Administration’s proposed “AI Diffusion” rule as a misguided step that threatens U.S. leadership in AI innovation. The dispute centers on new regulations that would impose controls on the export and design of AI-capable semiconductors and computing systems, including those commonly used in consumer devices — a move NVIDIA argues would harm U.S. competitiveness rather than enhance security.

2. Google targets 500 million Gemini AI users

RDW Index member Google, Mountain View, California, announced last week that it hopes to get 500 million users of its Gemini AI technology by the end of 2025. Market leader OpenAI’s ChatGPT currently has about 300 million weekly users. The Gemini app was the 54th-most downloaded free app last week, while ChatGPT was No. 4. Google’s newest AI technology jumped ahead of ChatGPT last month on the Chatbot Arena rankings. OpenAI has dominated these rankings for much of the past year.

3. Meta Platforms to eliminate 5% of its workforce

RDW Index member Meta Platforms, Menlo Park, California, announced last week that it plans to eliminate 5% of its workers in performance-based job cuts on February 10, 2025. CEO Mark Zuckerberg said that he plans to raise the bar on performance management and move out of low-performance faster. The company typically manages people out who are not meeting expectations over the course of a year and now the company is going to do more extensive performance based cuts during this cycle. The company currently has about 72,000 employees. The cuts come as the company is doubling down on AI to streamline workflows. CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a recent interview that Meta expected to use AI this year to do the coding work of “a sort of mid-level engineer.” He continued: “We’re going to get to a point where a lot of the code in our apps, and including the AI that we generate, is actually going to be built by AI engineers instead of people engineers.”

Healthcare & pharmaceuticals

4. Johnson & Johnson acquires Intra-Cellular Therapies for $15 Billion

RDW Index member Johnson & Johnson (JNJ), New Brunswick, New Jersey, announced last week that it plans to acquire mental health-illness drug developer Intra-Cellular Therapies, Bedminster, New Jersey, for about $ 15 billion. JNJ would gain humateperone, branded Caplyta, a pill that treats bipolar depression and schizophrenia. Analysts predict that Caplyta sales could reach $4 billion per year by 2030. The acquisition also includes a Phase 2 compound being studied in generalized anxiety disorders and Alzheimer’s disease related psychosis and agitation.

In the pharmaceutical portion of the R&D World Index this week, 6 out of 10 pharma companies posted declines amid broader market volatility, while Bristol-Myers Squibb had the strongest gain at +0.82%.

Manufacturing & industrial

5. U.S. tightens restrictions on advanced semiconductor chips

As part of its last actions, the Biden administration last week tightened restrictions on Chinese companies and their access to advanced semiconductor chips. The move tightens oversight on chip makers that ship advanced semiconductors to China, requiring them to seek licenses for transactions unless the chips’ performance falls below a technical threshold. The restrictions apply to non-U.S. companies such as Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, Taipei, Taiwan because they use American technology when they manufacture chips. The new rules put more than two dozen new entities on a trade blacklist, some of whom were acting on behalf of China to further its domestic chip ambitions. (See above for more detail on NVIDIA’s reaction to the news.)

Additional developments

6. Eli Lilly projects $60B revenue target despite insulin slowdown, acquires $2.5B Cancer Program

RDW Index member Eli Lilly & Co., Indianapolis, Indiana, announced last week that it reduced its fourth quarter revenue by about $400 million as the market for drugs that increase insulin levels grew slower than expected. The company sees healthy growth in 2025—between $58 billion and $61 billion–because of the strength of its weight loss drugs. Lilly also agreed last week to acquire Scorpion Therapeutics’, Boston, Massachusetts, breast cancer treatment program for up to $2.5 billion in cash. Shareholders of Scorpion were set to receive the proceeds in an upfront payment and subsequent payments contingent upon achieving regulatory and sales milestones. Specific timelines for these events were not provided.

7. Greenland signals openness to U.S. security partnership while maintaining sovereignty

Greenland’s prime minister said last week that his country has no interest in becoming a part of the U.S. but he is open to building closer ties with the new Trump administration in security and natural resource exploitation. Greenland has a population of just 57,000 being one of the smallest countries in the world in that statistic. Before his inauguration, Trump was quoted as being interested in purchasing Greenland from Denmark.

8. GM engine failure investigation

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). Washington, DC, announced last week that it is opening an investigation into General Motors, Detroit, Michigan, after it received up to 39 complaints alleging engine failures in Chevrolet, Cadillac and GMC models equipped with the L87 V-8 engine. The engine issue involve a bearing failure that may result in an engine seizure or breaching of the engine block by the connecting rod.

9. Symbotic-Walmart partnership

Technology company Symbotic, Wilmington, Massachusetts, announced last week that it has expanded its partnership with Walmart. Bentonville, Arkansas, taking on a $520 million program to develop an automated delivery platform while also agreeing to purchase the retail giant’s advanced systems and robotics business. Symbotic will develop, build and deploy a system that will automate and speed up online pickup and delivery options at Walmart stores. Walmart will deploy systems for 400 accelerated pickup and delivery centers at stores over a multiyear period. Symbotic has been working with Walmart since 2017.

The R&D World Index

The R&D World Index (RDWI) for the week ending January 17, 2025 closed at 3,790.35 for the 25 companies in the RDWI. The Index was down -1.33% (or -50.97 basis points). Fourteen RDWI members gained value last week from 0.82% (Bristol-Myers Squibb) to 12.22% (Intel). Eleven RDWI members lost value last week from -0.30% (Roche Holdings AG) to -9.34% (Eli Lilly & Co.).

R&D World’s R&D Index is a weekly stock market summary of the top international companies involved in R&D. The top 25 industrial R&D spenders in 2020 were selected based on the latest listings from Schonfeld & Associates’ June 2020 R&D Ratios & Budgets. These 25 companies include pharmaceutical (10 companies), automotive (6 companies) and ICT (9 companies) who invested a cumulative total of nearly 260 billion dollars in R&D in 2019, or approximately 10% of all the R&D spent in the world by government, industries and academia combined, according to R&D World’s 2021 Global R&D Funding Forecast. The stock prices used in the R&D World Index are tabulated from NASDAQ. NYSE, and OTC common stock prices for the companies selected at the close of stock trading business on the Friday preceding the online publication of the R&D World Index

R&D World Index: Week Ending January 17, 2025

#	Company	Ticker	Exchange	2020 R&D Billions $	01/10/25	01/17/25	1/10/25 to 1/17/25	1/1/22 to 1/17/25
1	Alphabet/Google	GOOGL	NASDAQ	27.303	193.17	197.55	2.27%	36.38%
2	Microsoft	MSFT	NASDAQ	17.198	418.95	429.03	2.41%	27.57%
3	Volkswagen AG	VWAGY	OTC	17.259	9.46	9.77	3.28%	-66.54%
4	Apple	AAPL	NASDAQ	18.667	236.85	229.98	-2.90%	29.52%
5	Facebook/Meta	META	NASDAQ	13.874	615.86	612.77	-0.50%	82.18%
6	Intel	INTC	NASDAQ	14.503	19.15	21.49	12.22%	-58.27%
7	Johnson & Johnson	JNJ	NYSE	13.750	142.06	147.03	3.50%	-14.05%
8	Roche Holdings AG	RHHBY	OTC	14.143	36.46	36.35	-0.30%	-29.68%
9	Merck & Co.	MRK	NYSE	11.381	99.25	97.92	-1.34%	27.77%
10	Novartis	NVS	NYSE	9.387	99.08	97.53	-1.54%	11.50%
11	Toyota	TM	NYSE	10.724	183.47	180.78	-1.47%	-2.44%
12	Pfizer	PFE	NYSE	8.336	26.72	26.30	-1.57%	-55.46%
13	Alibaba	BABA	NYSE	6.006	80.53	85.12	5.70%	-28.34%
14	GM	GM	NYSE	6.727	49.85	50.97	2.25%	-13.06%
15	Honda	HMC	NYSE	8.806	28.65	28.24	-1.43%	-0.74%
16	Ford	F	NYSE	9.340	9.65	10.18	5.49%	-50.99%
17	AbbVie	ABBV	NYSE	13.949	175.17	171.56	-2.06%	26.71%
18	Sanofi SA	SNY	NYSE	7.750	48.73	50.74	4.12%	1.28%
19	Cisco	CSCO	NASDAQ	6.331	58.74	60.23	2.54%	-4.96%
20	Bristol-Myers Squibb	BMY	NYSE	7.130	55.83	56.29	0.82%	-9.72%
21	Astra Zeneca PLC	AZN	NYSE	6.056	67.01	66.60	-0.61%	14.33%
22	IBM	IBM	NYSE	5.368	219.75	224.79	2.29%	68.18%
23	Oracle	ORCL	NYSE	6.928	154.50	161.03	4.23%	84.65%
24	Eli Lilly & Co.	LLY	NYSE	8.606	799.90	725.22	-9.34%	162.55%
25	Stellantis NV	STLA	NYSE	5.309	12.53	12.88	2.79%	-34.08%
Total				269.522	3841.32	3790.35	-1.33%	34.42%
ICT					1997.50	2021.99	1.23%	39.48%
Automotive					293.61	292.82	-0.27%	-14.35%
Biopharmaceutical					1550.21	1475.54	-4.82%	43.50%