The AI Companies Fighting COVID-19

The AI field has rallied to answer the call for aid on COVID-19, with many companies adapting and developing their products and services to fight against this current pandemic.

The list below details companies doing exactly that. From academic institutions to global brands, we have highlighted a few stories which should definitely be recognised from both those in the RE•WORK community and beyond.

BenevolentAI - RE•WORK community member, Benevolent AI published two articles, one in The Lancet and one in The Lancet Infectious Diseases, identifying approved drugs that might block the viral replication process of SARS-CoV-2. The cited articles recognised, through its AI systems, six compounds that are used to block particular pathways of the virus, which in-turn, slow multiplication of particles. This was discovered through the use of a large repository of medical information, including data extracted from the scientific literature by machine learning tools.

Delft Imaging - The integrated solutions provider for medical imaging are used in over 40 countries worldwide & have recently teamed up with sister company and AI specialist Thirona, developing a tool to aid in the triage of COVID-19, identifying affected lung tissue for specialists. The concept, named CAD4COVID has been developed with the intention to support triaging in resource-constrained settings and high-prevalence areas. It has become available in the week of March 30th and its use will be free-of-charge.

Cordio Medical - The groundbreaking solution normally monitors several health conditions through free speech into a simple smartphone app backed by sophisticated and proprietary algorithms allowing near realtime monitoring and early detection of condition deterioration. How is this being applied to COVID? Well, Cordio have adopted to using their technology to detect changes in lung fluid as associated to the COVID-19 virus. This software could also be considerably useful for those in self-isolation and remotely testing.

DeepMind - Google's DeepMind is also at work fighting COVID-19, searching for unique properties in the virus is using its AlphaFold system to create “structure predictions of several under-studied proteins associated with SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19.” Whilst not verified or backed by the CDC, it is hoped that DeepMind's contribution will aid scientists in understanding the virus when making considerations for vaccinations and cures.

Insilico Medicine - The startup based in Rockville is suggested to be using AI to rapidly identify molecules that could form the basis of an effective treatment against the coronavirus at the heart of the current outbreak. Insilico says it will synthesize and test 100 of the most promising candidates, while publishing the full library of new molecular structures it has generated for other researchers to possibly use.

Axial AI - The development from Skymind is now being made available to the NHS of England, utilising CT scanning diagnosis, aiding medical teams in faster diagnostics of COVID-19. The service is said to identify signs of the coronavirus in only ten seconds, maximising the time made available for treatment and recovery of patients.

Exscientia - The Pharma and drug discovery company out of the University of Dundee, is utilising large collection of existing drugs held by the Scripps research institute in California and funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which is set to be analysed in collaboration with Diamond Light Source near Oxford, which works like a giant microscope and generates bright light that allows scientists to study viruses.

DarwinAI - The Canadian AI startup have collaborated with researchers at the University of Waterloo’s VIP Lab to develop COVID-Net: a convolutional neural network for COVID-19 detection via chest radiography. DarwinAI have suggested that whilst the tool is open source and available to the general public, it is by no means a production-ready solution and at this time is not suitable for direct clinical diagnosis.

Providence - In collaboration with Microsoft, Providence built an online screening and triage tool that could rapidly differentiate between those who might really be sick with COVID-19 and those who appear to be suffering from less threatening ailments. In its first week, Providence’s tool served more than 40,000 patients, delivering care at an unprecedented scale.

BlueDot - The Toronto based company is leveraging Machine Learning and Natural Language Processing to track, recognise, and report the spread of COVID-19, which they claim is a quicker reporting tool than that used by he World Health Organization and the US Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)

Honourable Mentions:


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