Drugmaker Merck & Co said on Wednesday it will partner with Google Cloud to build up its artificial intelligence capabilities, investing ‌as much as $1 billion with Google over a number of years to fund AI ‌infrastructure, engineers and licensing of the tech company's Gemini Enterprise platform. The partnership, announced at Google's Cloud Next conference in ​Las Vegas, builds on work already underway between the companies and includes Google Cloud engineers working alongside Merck teams, executives from both companies said.