Industry Watcher’s Digest

Buzzworthy developments of the past few days.

• The little gaming company that could is now the big healthcare AI disrupter that can and will. Announcing new partnerships with IQVIA, Illumina and Mayo Clinic, Nvidia is talking about helping create “an AI factory opportunity in the hundreds of billions of dollars.” Kimberly Powell, Nvidia’s VP of healthcare, says the company’s new and existing partnerships are “poised to usher in a new era of medical and biological innovation and improve patient outcomes worldwide.” Recall that Nvidia started out in 1993, now famously, in a Denny’s restaurant. At the time, all Jensen Huang and colleagues had in mind was bringing 3D graphics to the gaming and multimedia markets. Today Nvidia is one of the world’s two most valuable companies, often jockeying for the lead against Apple. Healthcare AI dreamers, take note. 
   
• Also rattling the change in its deep pockets while moving fast on AI for healthcare is Amazon Web Services. Monday the Bezos baby announced a multiyear partnership with the venture capital firm General Catalyst. AWS says other companies in GC’s portfolio will tap AWS’s expertise to accelerate development and deployment of healthcare AI products. The companies include Aidoc and Commure. Chris Bischoff, head of global healthcare investing at General Catalyst, tells CNBC his firm has “spent a lot of time thinking about how health systems can transform themselves, and we recognize that it’s not going to be through 1,000 companies. We need solutions that are really enterprise grade.” 
   
• What if the deliverables never do live up to the promises? As much of healthcare AI remains an early work in progress, it’s only right to occasionally ask the question. At Science News, biotechnologist Meghan Rosen, PhD, and geneticist Tina Hesman Saey, PhD, do just that. “The stakes are high,” they point out. “If efforts fail, it means billions of dollars wasted and diverted from other interventions that could have saved lives.” The pair interviewed dozens of scientists and physicians en route to identifying six encouraging healthcare AI use cases and arriving at a reasonable conclusion: “[S]ome researchers, clinicians and engineers say that AI’s potential for making lives better is so high,” they write, “we have to try.” 
   
• Having released the latest version of Llama in December, Meta is telling the world that open-source AI is the future of AI in healthcare. In a Jan. 13 post, the Facebook parent company briefly describes and interviews two companies making the case. Meta also touts the benefits of open source in its own voice. “Developers, researchers and other professionals can download and fine-tune the models on their own devices,” the post reads. “That they don’t need to send their data back to the AI model providers strengthens control and security over private health data—critical factors for highly regulated industries like healthcare.”  
   
• Is greed good for healthcare AI? Well, it can be. One would be foolish to think developers work for months to come up with one-of-a-kind algorithms just to benefit humankind. Most hope to make a financial killing too. At MedCity News, an attorney urges these multi-motivated innovators to pay attention to intellectual property protection and, more to the point, patent protection. “The economic value of a great patent can be enormous,” writes David Carstens, JD, MBA, of Carstens, Allen & Gourley. “The ability to charge customers more for an AI-provided service improves when you have a patent to prevent your competitors from introducing the same service.” Makes sense. More here. 
   
• Yes, Virginia, there is meaningful AI regulation at the state level. It’s in yours. In fact, several bills are in the works inside Old Dominion. One would require AI developers to publicly disclose their products’ origin and history. Another would mandate certain must-dos for end-users as well as developers, either of whom could face civil penalties for noncompliance. Journalist Nathaniel Cline breaks down the pending laws for the Virginia Mercury. He quotes a state rep and AI bill author who’s been working across state lines to “‘minimize patchwork legislation around the nation’ as the country waits for federal policy action on AI.”
   
• A strong majority of insured Americans, some 67%, would trust their carrier’s AI copilot to give them the straight skinny on their coverage. Yet exactly half that ratio, 33%, are confident in the way AI is deployed today versus two years ago. The findings are from a survey of around 2,100 American adults conducted in November by the Harris Poll on behalf of healthtech vendor Pager Health. More results from Pager here and from Fierce Healthcare here. 
   
• Be glad you work in healthcare. A nerve-rattling 41% of large commercial concerns around the world tell the World Economic Forum they’ll be looking to cut jobs on the strength of AI to automate many tasks over the next five years. Meanwhile 77% say they’ll reskill and upskill their current workforces. One of the aims there will be making human workers competent with—and comfortable around—their nonhuman colleagues. Imagine the watercooler conversations. 
   
• Recent research in the news: 
   
  • Unique Stanford Medicine-designed AI predicts cancer prognoses, responses to treatment
     
  • University of Lübeck: AI enhances breast cancer detection: Results from the world’s largest prospective AI study
     
  • Newcastle University: Using AI to predict the outcome of aggressive skin cancers
     
• Select mergers & acquisitions:
   
  • SuperDial acquires MajorBoost to expand voice AI capabilities for US healthcare organizations 
     
  • New Mountain Capital to acquire Machinify and combine with leading healthcare intelligence and payment platform
     
• Funding news of note:
   
  • Healthcare VC hits $23B record as AI transforms biopharma investment landscape
     
  • AWS plans to invest at least $11B in Georgia to expand infrastructure to support AI and cloud technologies
     
  • Innovaccer secures $275M in Series F to scale its healthcare intelligence cloud
     
  • AI healthcare platform Cera secures $150M in financing
     
  • Healthcare AI supplier Qventus announces $105M investment
     
• From AIin.Healthcare’s news partners:
   
  • Radiology Business: Radiology leaders optimistic about AI but see cost as a key hurdle
     
  • Health Imaging: FDA has approved over 1,000 clinical AI applications, with most aimed at radiology