2020 will be remembered as the year the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) swept across the world and impacted our public health systems, as well as our daily lives and work. The virus has infected a huge population in a short span of time, which imposes huge pressure on the medical systems of many regions. As a result, the medical industry is looking for ways to improve and expedite diagnosis and treatment. It is inevitable that the use of AI-empowered medical technology can help contain the virus and save more lives.
Medical diagnosis and evaluation using CT images are important to preventing and controlling the spread of COVID-19. When the pandemic peaks, the number of patients requiring hospitalisation every day usually surpasses the maximum treatment capacity of the hospital. This means that not only are most departments overwhelmed, but hindered by traditional CT technology, which is not capable of keeping up with the demand for fast diagnosis. Specifically, the system processes image browsing, compares historical images, and describes impact before generating an analysis report for radiologists. In normal settings, conventional diagnosistic technology takes 15-20 minutes and delivers an accuracy rate up to 90%. However, due to the limited medical resources and heavy workload of doctors, this figure may decline in practice. Consequently, this impacts the future treatment of suspected cases, false negatives, and confirmed cases.
Huawei and partners
At this critical juncture, Huawei is working with medical partners to find a way forward. In March 2020, Huawei and Advanced Global Solution (AGS), an Italian-based enterprise, jointly launched an AI-based medical image diagnosis system to supercharge the diagnosis and treatment for COVID-19. This diagnostic solution runs on an AI foundation and the computing power of the Atlas 800 server and Atlas 300 inference card needed for a wide range of intelligent functions, such as intelligent CT image reading, automatic pneumonia classification, multi-colour rendering of lesions, and intuitive comparison of baseline histograms. Combined with the AI image diagnostic system and the expertise of doctors, the solution quickly identifies the symptoms of patients with COVID-19 within 2 to 3 minutes, and evaluates the treatment effect with an accuracy rate over 98%. Fast and accurate diagnosis is crucial to the treatment of patients during pandemics like COVID-19. With the Atlas-based intelligent solution, doctors can determine the treatment scheme as soon as possible and allocate medical resources based on the severity of the disease, providing effective and timely treatment for patients in critical condition.
Atlas 800 AI server
The open Atlas 800 AI server is an easy to- use device that offers high performance and adaptive configuration in a secure and trusted manner. It runs on the Kunpengand Intel-based AI inference platforms, and can be easily deployed within half a day, allowing hospitals to immediately provide AI-based diagnosis and treatment amid the medical emergency. The diagnostic speed is so impressive that this solution has been widely adopted in many hospitals across the world, such as Italy, Poland, France, and Mexico, to deal with the growing number of patients.
Huawei focuses on open hardware, open source software, and partner enablement. Huawei provides the AI development tool and platform to support local ISVs to implement the AI solution. At the HUAWEI CONNECT 2020 held in Shanghai in September, Huawei released the Full-Stack Ascend AI solution, including the Atlas series hardware, CANN AI algorithm architecture, MindSpore AI model framework, MindStudio fullpipeline development toolchain and MindX application development tool for all-scenario AI computing, which helps the local developer/ISV to develop the applications.
The Middle East is an innovative region offering great potential for the use of AI technology, especially in the healthcare field. The battle against COVID-19 is still on-going, and everyone will benefit from the combination of AI technology and cloud computing. The resulting services will not only empower the health foundation of everyone’s life, but create safer, more sustainable communities for the future.
