AI Companies Fighting COVID-19

The AI field has rallied to answer the call for aid on fighting COVID-19, with many companies adapting and developing their products and services to find a solution for this current pandemic. The silver lining is that COVID-19 is fast-tracking AI integration into healthcare which will help us down the line with identifying, tracing, and wiping out future deadly diseases and infections.

AI Companies Fighting COVID-19

The list below details AI-focussed companies fighting COVID-19. From academic institutions to global brands, in this article, you’ll find stories that should definitely be recognised for their efforts against the Coronavirus.

Benevolent AI

Benevolent AI, a RE•WORK member, published two articles, one in The Lancet and one in The Lancet Infectious Diseases. In both articles, they identified 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

Delft Imaging is an integrated solutions provider for medical imaging that is used in over 40 countries worldwide.

Delft Imagining recently teamed up with sister company and AI specialist Thirona to develop 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. The imaging became available in the week of March 30^th and its use will be free-of-charge.

Cordio Medical 

This groundbreaking solution usually monitors several health conditions through free speech into a simple smartphone app. This application is backed by sophisticated and proprietary algorithms allowing near-real-time monitoring and early detection of condition deterioration.

How is this being applied to COVID-19?

Well, Cordio has adopted using its technology to detect changes in lung fluid as associated with 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.

DeepMind is searching for unique properties in the virus by using its AlphaFold system. DeepMind said in a statement that using this system was 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 in a Fortune article 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 in the article 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 to fight COVID-19 by utilising CT scanning diagnosis and aiding medical teams to diagnose COVID-19 more quickly. 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.

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Exscientia 

The Pharma and drug discovery company out of the University of Dundee is fighting COVID-19 by utilising a large collection of existing drugs held by the Scripps research institute in California.

The initiative is funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which is set to be analysed in collaboration with Diamond Light Source near Oxford. Diamond Light Source works in a way similar to a giant microscope by generating bright lights that allow scientists and experts to study viruses at a highly detailed microscopic level.

DarwinAI

The Canadian AI startup has 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 has 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 or join the fight against COVID-19.

Providence 

In collaboration with Microsoft, Providence built an online screening and triage tool that could rapidly differentiate between those who are at high risk of becoming fatally sick with COVID-19 and those who appear to be at a lower risk of death. In its first week, Providence’s tool served more than 40,000 patients, being able to deliver care at an unprecedented scale and help with the fight against COVID-19.

BlueDot 

The Toronto based company is leveraging Machine Learning and Natural Language Processing to track, recognise, and report the spread of COVID-19. BlueDot claims it’s a quicker reporting tool for identifying COVID-19 than the one used by The World Health Organization and the US Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Honourable Mentions for Companies Fighting COVID-19

Below are a list of other stories and companies that are coming up with solutions to fighting COVID-19 and that deserve recognition for the work they are doing to help keep people alive during these tough times.

• Baidu has made its Linearfold algorithm available to scientific and medical teams fighting the outbreak
• Apple’s recently released COVID-19 app and website are designed to assist with screening measures and alleviate some of the stress on the healthcare system
• Massachusetts Institute of Technology announced in February that it had used AI to develop a powerful antibiotic that wipes out a range of drug-resistant bacteria
• Chinese technology company Baidu developed a no-contact infrared sensor system to quickly single out individuals with a fever, even in crowds
• Developers at the Oxford-based data-visualisation company, Zegami, have created a machine learning model that it says can diagnose the virus from the images
• Cognovi Labs has found a way to measure people’s emotional response toward COVID-19 in real time with its Coronavirus Panic Index
• NVIDIA is providing a free 90-day license for Parabricks, which allows for using AI for genomics purposes
• DataRobot is offering its platform for no charge. This allows for the deployment, monitoring and management of AI models at scale. The technology is also provided to the Kaggle competition

Join the AI in Healthcare community to discuss fighting COVID-19

Are you Interested in AI in Healthcare and COVID-19 resources? Well, why not sign up to RE•WORK’s Slack group today to get updates and join the conversation.