Malaysia Partners with China to Collab on Research Lab

Skymind Neurobionix Research joins Malaysia Ministry of Health as its first foreign international partnership to share technology and expertise in research to help in the management of the spread of COVID-19.

Skymind Holdings CEO Shawn Tan says Skymind’s Axial AI-based system has been delivered to the Tunku Azizah Hospital in Kuala Lumpur in its mission to advance the adoption of AI in clinical and healthcare research on COVID-19 in Malaysia.

According to Tan, this is a first step towards building a global research community driven by AI to resolve current and future pandemics.

Running on systems from United Imaging Intelligence, Tan says the technology to enable machine learning and deep learning applications in the Axial AI system is using Skymind’s Eclipse DL4J.

“It takes less than 30 minutes to install the AI Supercomputer. This system is designed to work on-premise. Using our platform Eclipse DL4J, we have designed the Axial AI system to be used by the people who work with patient’s data and have the contextual understanding, including doctors and clinicians. With the platform, we give them the ability to bring all the relevant patient information together, curate the data and use the power of AI to support precision diagnosis, early intervention and greater medical efficiency. The Axial AI system is not built specifically for the COVID-19 purpose but being a software development toolkit, it can also develop AI diagnosis systems for other diseases which the hospital requires,” says Tan.

According to Tan, Axial AI was developed to assist the medical team to speed up the analysing time of CT scans of suspected COVID-19 cases. Tan says this AI system was used at more than 60 COVID-19 specialised hospitals across China including Huoshenshan Hospital and Leishenshan Hospital in Wuhan, which he says delivered a faster and more accurate diagnosis than existing systems.

According to Tan, Axial AI is able to automate the analysis of CT Scan images within 10 seconds, with an accuracy of more than 90 percent.

Skymind and the Skymind Laboratory of Neurobionix Research in Shanghai, China (Skymind Neurobionix), recently announced their intention to collaborate and provide support for the use of the Axial AI system and related services to Malaysia’s Ministry of Health.

“Being an on-premise solution, the Axial AI system delivered to the Hospital Tunku Azizah ensures that no other entity apart from the hospital staff has access to patient’s sensitive data which is in compliance with Malaysia’s Personal Data Protection Act,” says Tan.

According to Tan, the collaboration will see Skymind Neurobionix extend its team’s expertise led by Prof Xu Zhang, an academician with the Chinese Academy of Sciences, whom was experienced in combating the COVID-19 in China, working together with researchers in Malaysia on current and future COVID-19 research.

Tan says the intention of the collaboration is to link clinical researchers in Malaysia to the research community in China.

According to Tan, this collaboration would be extended into the broader scope of AI-based research in clinical and medical fields.

“This system is not specific only for COVID-19 but it can also help with other illnesses like cancer detection, in partnership with Malaysia’s National Institute of Health,” says Tan.

Commenting on the partnership, Director-General of Ministry of Health, Datuk Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah says Malaysia’s medical community is seeing a strong response from the private sector who are lending a helping hand in Malaysia’s fight against COVID-19.

“The contribution from Skymind will help the medical staff conducting clinical research to provide useful information and understanding of COVID-19 in Malaysia. This will be a steep learning curve for us all within the health sector. With all hands on deck, we are doing everything we can to ensure the safety of all people, [whose] health remains our priority,” says Dr Abdullah.

(Ed. The Skymind Laboratory of Neurobionix Research is a joint research lab in Shanghai, China under Shanghai Research Center of Brain Science and Brain-Inspired Intelligence and Skymind China. The partnership is led by Chinese Academy of Sciences Prof. Zhang Xu, under the governance of The Administration of Shanghai Brain-Intelligence Project.)