Essentially, Glaxo will hand over some data and a series of objectives, and Exscientia will use its systems to simulate way to a conclusion. If successful, the process may be able to spit out potential pills that are close to being ready for tests on humans. Exscientia's Andrew Hopkins claims that his system can find potential treatments in a quarter of the time, at a quarter of the cost.

Of course, there's still plenty of skepticism that digital drug creation can really supplant old-fashioned methods of research. Being able to simulate chemicals and test their efficacy has not -- yet -- been proven to be as successful as the traditional method. But if it does work, then expect to hear much more about how big supercomputers are doing away with hundreds of clinical researchers.