LabGenius uses Graphcore’s IPUs to speed up drug discovery

AI-driven scientific research firm LabGenius is harnessing the power of Graphcore’s IPUs (Intelligence Processing Units) to speed up its drug discovery efforts.

LabGenius is currently focused on discovering new treatments for cancer and inflammatory diseases. The firm combines AI, lab automation, and synthetic biology for its potentially life-saving work.

Until now, the company has been using traditional GPUs for its workloads. LabGenius reports that switching to...

Babylon Health taps Google Cloud to boost scalability and innovation

AI-powered healthcare service Babylon Health has announced a partnership with Google Cloud to boost scalability and innovation.

London-based Babylon Health is a digital-first health service provider that uses AI and machine learning technology to provide access to health information to people whenever and wherever they need it.

The company has partnered with private and public across the UK, North America, South-East Asia, and Rwanda with the aim of making healthcare...

The NHS can now access ‘pioneering’ AI stroke diagnosis software

NHS Shared Business Services (NHS SBS) has announced a procurement framework for "pioneering" AI software to diagnose strokes.

Breakthroughs in medical AIs are helping to reduce patient suffering, the likelihood and/or severity of long-term complications, and even save lives across a number of ailments.

Some of the benefits from medical AI breakthroughs are achieved through improved understanding leading to better treatment, while others are due to reducing the amount of...

EU clears $19.7B Microsoft-Nuance deal without any small print

The EU has concluded Microsoft’s $19.7 billion acquisition of Nuance doesn’t pose competition concerns.

Nuance gained renown for originally creating the backend of that little old virtual assistant called Siri (you might have heard of it?)

The company has since continued to focus on building its speech recognition capabilities and has a number of solutions which span particular industries such as healthcare to general omni-channel customer experience...

Four major impacts of artificial intelligence on healthcare

Medical technology is on the brink of being revolutionized by artificial intelligence (AI). In nearly every area of patient care, from chronic diseases and cancer to radiography and risk assessment, the potential of AI to deliver more accurate, efficient, and effective therapies at precisely the appropriate time in a patient's care is almost limitless. As payment systems change, patients expect more from their providers, and the amount of accessible data continues to grow at an alarming...

UK health secretary hopes AI projects can tackle racial inequality

UK Health Secretary Sajid Javid has greenlit a series of AI-based projects that aim to tackle racial inequalities in the NHS.

Racial inequality continues to be rampant in healthcare. Examining the fallout of COVID-19 serves as yet another example of the disparity between ethnicities.

In England and Wales, males of Black African ethnic background had the highest rate of death involving COVID-19, 2.7 times higher than males of a White ethnic background. Females of Black...

BenevolentAI’s drug discovery platform identifies novel target for ulcerative colitis

London-based AI pioneer BenevolentAI has identified a novel target for ulcerative colitis through its drug discovery platform.

The candidate was identified by scientists who used BenevolentAI’s target ID tools and machine learning models to identify and experimentally validate a novel biological target. Impressively, the achievement was made without any prior reference in published alliteration or patents linking the gene to ulcerative colitis.

Anne Phelan, Chief...

DeepMind hit with class-action lawsuit over NHS health data scandal

DeepMind is facing a class-action lawsuit over its controversial use of NHS patients’ health data back in 2015.

Google-owned DeepMind was quietly given the personal records of 1.6 million patients at the Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust.

DeepMind said that it was using the data to create a potentially life-saving app called Streams. The app was designed to alert, diagnose, and detect when patients were at risk of developing acute kidney injury. It’s currently...

National Robotarium pioneers AI and telepresence robotic tech for remote health consultations

The National Robotarium, hosted by Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh, has unveiled an AI-powered telepresence robotic solution for remote health consultations.

Using the solution, health practitioners would be able to assess a person’s physical and cognitive health from anywhere in the world. Patients could access specialists no matter whether they’re based in the UK, India, the US, or anywhere else.

Iain Stewart, UK Government Minister for Scotland,...

NVIDIA launches UK supercomputer to search for healthcare solutions

NVIDIA supercomputer

Nvidia’s ‘Cambridge-1’ is now operational and utilising AI and simulation to advance research in healthcare.

The UK’s most powerful supercomputer and among the world’s top fifty, Cambridge-1 was announced by the technology company in October last year and cost $100 million (£72m) to build.

Its first projects with AstraZeneca, GSK, Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust, King’s College London, and Oxford Nanopore Technologies include developing a...