AI healthcare software company VinBrain, a company backed by Vietnam’s largest conglomerate Vingroup, has entered into an official partnership with Microsoft.
WHICH
According to a press release, the partnership, which is the first for a global technology company in Vietnam, will work in three areas of AI healthcare: data sharing, intermediate product validation, and research and development.
VinBrain will use DrAid, its AI-powered pathology suite that can detect 21 indicators of heart, lung and bone disease. The US FDA-approved platform is used by about 2,000 doctors and more than 100 hospitals in Vietnam.
The AI ​​platform works on a dataset of more than 2 million images from multiple regions—the United States, Asia, and Europe. This data will be shared using Microsoft Azure, which will also ensure privacy and security, manage ever-changing compliance regulations and improve data governance.
As part of the collaboration, VinBrain will also use Azure Cognitive Services for Computer Vision to validate new deep learning models, including Microsoft’s latest computer vision model Florence.
It’s also looking to use Azure Cognitive Services to develop its own AI capabilities for image processing and retrieval, as well as building, deploying and improving image classifiers, with the expectation that the service will help increase the accuracy of DrAid’s imaging capabilities.
The same service will also be used by the two companies in their joint research and development to develop new artificial intelligence products that solve global healthcare problems.
WHY IT’S IMPORTANT
Through a collaboration between Microsoft and VinBrain, AI can be used to improve medical services in remote areas where medical facilities are limited. “From a social point of view, it will help speed up the solution process [the] the increasing number of health care problems with lack of infrastructure, uneven doctor-patient ratio and increasing demand for health care services,” they said in a statement.
For VinBrain CEO Stephen Truong, the partnership will deepen the company’s focus and advance AI product development in the health technology space. “Using the latest AI technology and assessment framework, this collaboration with Microsoft will directly impact billions of people in the early [disease] discovery and workflow productivity,” he added.
On the other hand, the collaboration is seen as an opportunity for Microsoft to expand its presence in Southeast Asia’s healthcare space, according to Dr. Yumao Lu, head of Microsoft’s US partner engineering.
THE BIGGEST TREND
VinBrain recently developed AI model for tuberculosis screening, which is one of the very common diseases in Vietnam. The TB diagnostic model, which was developed using Microsoft Azure, has since been integrated into DrAid.
