SingHealth, the National Supercomputing Centre Singapore, and NVIDIA have announced a collaboration to support advanced healthcare research at SingHealth.

WHAT IT'S ABOUT

According to a press statement, the partnership will see SingHealth teaming up with NSCC to construct and deploy a supercomputer at SingHealth's Singapore General Hospital Campus. Meanwhile, NVIDIA will provide access to its pre-trained artificial intelligence models and unique software development tools.

The NSCC's Supercomputing Digital Sandbox environment will also enable healthcare professionals and researchers who are not trained in high-performance computing to operate the new supercomputer.

WHY IT MATTERS

The SingHealth-NSCC-NVIDIA collaboration facilitates high-value medical research that will enhance clinical outcomes and patient care.

The use of supercomputers, advanced software and AI tools will expedite the advancements of various research and healthcare projects, such as diagnosing cardiovascular diseases and identifying neoantigens from cancer mutations using AI.

The statement went on to mention that the collaboration will support SingHealth's Artificial Intelligence for Transformation of Medicine Programme. This project drives the development of AI algorithms that can predict a patient's risk of cardiovascular events and perform smart triaging.

The partnership will also look into areas of research outside healthcare. "Our collaboration with NSCC and SingHealth will help to grow research and innovation in healthcare, as well as other key fields related to climate research and digital twin simulation in Singapore," said Dennis Ang, senior director at NVIDIA.

THE LARGER TREND

In December, another healthcare cluster in Singapore – the National University Health System – entered into a collaborative agreement with NSCC to build a supercomputing infrastructure to support AI programmes in public healthcare institutions by mid-2022. The supercomputing infrastructure, called PRESCIENCE, would train AI models that predict patient health trajectories and tell when a patient's condition may deteriorate.

ON THE RECORD

"These public-private partnerships linking the entire value chain of infrastructure, software, digital tools and researchers will accelerate scientific outcomes, and in this case support Singapore’s healthcare and medical services," said Dr Janil Puthucheary, Senior Minister of State, Ministry of Communications and Information & Ministry of Health.