How cloud computing services help to boost businesses in creating artificial intelligence applications for healthcare.
by Deborah Seah
The healthcare system is a complex workflow that generates large amounts of data daily. With all these data its no wonder that artificial intelligence will have its applications in healthcare. Many healthcare companies are tapping on this technology, utilising machine learning, natural language processing, or deep learning to analyse large amounts of data to obtain solutions or identify patterns. Common applications of artificial intelligence in healthcare include diagnosis, risk prediction, and treatment planning.
In order to engage such applications, these companies have to be supported at the back end to provide computing power and building blocks to formulate their artificial intelligence (AI) platforms. To learn about the support of computing services for healthcare companies, we sat down with two such companies to understand how they have leveraged on AI technology to provide better healthcare service for patients and clients and address unmet clinical needs.
NIRAMAI (Non-Invasive Risk Assessment with Machine Intelligence), an Indian healthcare start-up is developing a machine learning software to detect breast cancer. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), breast cancer affects 2.1 million women every year which is also the highest number of cancer-related deaths among women making up to 15 percent of all cancer deaths among women. The team at NIRAMAI saw this as an important medical need for early detection and diagnosis of breast cancer to reduce mortality rates. Its main technology is an AI-based diagnostic platform using patented thermal image processing and machine learning algorithms. The software will allow for faster, cost-efficient, automated, and painless screening for breast cancer.
“Google Cloud partnership has enabled us to train our machine learning model within minutes as compared to weeks,” shares Geetha Manjunath, CEO and Co-Founder for NIRAMAI. She and her team are now able to use TensorFlow and GPU (graphical processing unit) cards on the Cloud which has helped to enhance their productivity in developing their AI software. Being able to scale their process through Google Cloud they can run multiple tests in the background at the same time.
Max Kelsen an artificial intelligence and machine learning consultancy that provides technological expertise and solutions for governments and businesses to help drive their artificial intelligence applications. Their healthcare-related projects include the integration of whole-genome sequencing and AI for predictive cancer treatments, predictive modelling solutions for analysing public health datasets and identifying from different kinds of patient records to produce a rich patient continuum.
Nicholas Therkelsen-Terry, CEO and Co-Founder for Max Kelsen explains how Google Cloud empowers them and their clients to create AI solutions in healthcare, “We needed a cloud that could scale and host our workloads, and we needed it to be affordable. Some of our customers go from zero to 5,000 CPUs, in five minutes, with Google Cloud that are able to have access to multi-million-dollar worth of hardware for the 15 minutes they needed.” He shares that at an organizational level between Google and Max Kelsen there is a focus on healthcare and biotechnology. Making them suitable partners to work together and get the support they need in providing healthcare and genomic solutions with AI.
“We’re not just a customer that absorbs a lot of computing power, we are a customer that aligns with their goals and aspirations and efforts,” Nicholas Therkelsen-Terry points out as one of the main reasons they enjoy working with Google. [APBN]
About the Interviewees
Geetha Manjunath,
CEO and Co-Founder for NIRAMAI
Nicholas Therkelsen-Terry,
CEO and Co-Founder for Max Kelsen