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🔙 Highlights from Last Week

We hosted students from the DePaul University PEVC Club 👇🏽

We held our 6th Data Night at Drive with UChicago’s Data Science Institute.

This month’s speaker was Adam McElhinney, CEO of Uptake, who shared how ML is shaping the future of IoT 👇🏽

We also welcomed students from North Dakota State University 👇🏽

The OpenAI for Oncology is in Chicago

Foundation models are the new infrastructure. GPT changed text. Midjourney changed visuals. Suno is changing audio. But what happens when you bring that kind of power to cancer care?

In Chicago, Tempus is building exactly that: a foundational model trained on the largest multimodal dataset in oncology.

Let’s break it down:

What Tempus is Building

Tempus is creating the largest multimodal foundation model for oncology right here in Chicago. It’s powered by over 250 petabytes of de-identified clinical and molecular data, including 7.3m patient records, 1.4m imaging datasets, and 1.3m genomic profiles.

This will be one of the most expansive datasets in healthcare. The model will combine text, images, and genomic data to unlock faster insights across cancer care: predicting treatment responses, finding clinical trial matches, and surfacing new drug targets.

To pull this off, Tempus recently teamed up with AstraZeneca and Pathos AI in a $200m multi-year partnership. All three will use the model to fuel drug discovery and precision medicine. Even better: Pathos is also being built right here in Chicago, alongside Tempus. It’s a sign that a whole new ecosystem of AI biotech is starting to take shape around this work in Chicago.

This isn’t just another big LLM. It’s a vertical AI platform built to change how we fight cancer.

Why This Matters for Startups and for Chicago

Tempus isn’t just building a product, it’s building a platform.

Startups could one day plug into its API to build AI-powered diagnostics, clinical trial tools, and drug discovery platforms without needing to spend years gathering their own massive datasets.

This is a major unlock for healthcare innovation, especially in the Midwest. And it’s a win for Chicago too. Tempus shows how our city’s deep healthcare roots, top medical schools, and growing data science community are converging to power the next generation of AI.

📊 Chart of the Week

Chicago is home to over 130 data centers, with heavy clusters in Elk Grove Village and downtown.

Major players like Digital Realty, Microsoft, and Lumen are leading the expansion, fueled by AI demand. Chicago’s edge in energy, connectivity, and location is turning it into a national hub for compute.

📆 Events Around the City

Hear why BILL S&E is #1 + earn AirPods 4

BILL is the all-in-one financial platform that simplifies managing bills, invoices, expenses, budgets, and business credit.

As a controller, you need software that works as hard as you do—that’s why BILL Spend & Expense is ranked #1 on G2’s 2025 Best Accounting & Finance Products list. New features include:

• Assistant permissions for seamless delegation

• Auto-freezing cards

• Visa Signature benefit

• API integrations for smarter scaling

Ready to see it in action and claim your AirPods 4?*

Claim Your Airpods

_{*Terms and conditions apply. See offer page for details. The BILL Divvy Card is issued by Cross River Bank, Member FDIC, and is not a deposit product.}

Cofactor Demo Day

• Hosted by Cooley, Drive Capital, Trigent, and JP Morgan

• Monday

• RSVP

1 Million Cups Chicago

• Wednesday

• RSVP

TechWalk | Chicago, 5/1 w/ Northwestern Alumni

• Thursday

• RSVP

Inside the Loop Biweekly Coffee

• Thursday

• RSVP

HackwithChicago

• Saturday

• RSVP

🗞 Previous Newsletters:

#105 - Inside the Illinois Lab Using AI to Run Reactors

#104 - How Chicago’s Data Ecosystem is Powering the Next Wave of AI

#103 - Why Illinois has Two National Labs

#102 - How Chicago Startup Compensation Compares to the Coasts

👋 See you next week!

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