Microsoft & NVIDIA Extends Partnership to Boost AI Innovation in Healthcare

Together Microsoft Azure, NVIDIA DGX Cloud, and the NVIDIA Clara suite, can help enhance organizational efficiency and bring effectiveness to their operations.

Global tech giant Microsoft and chip maker NVIDIA have expanded their collaboration in the areas of generative AI, cloud computing, and accelerated computing to drive innovation in healthcare and life sciences.

This partnership will merge Microsoft Azure's global scale, security, and advanced computing capabilities with NVIDIA DGX Cloud and the NVIDIA Clara suite of computing platforms, software, and services, Microsoft said in a press release.

The objective is to accelerate clinical research, drug discovery, and medical image-based diagnostic technology to improve patient care and advance precision medicine.

Peter Durlach, corporate VP, Health & Life Sciences, Microsoft, “Through this collaboration, we aim to help the industry unlock breakthroughs in healthcare, making care more precise, accessible, and effective to deliver a meaningful difference in the lives of patients globally.”

Durlach further highlighted the goal of unlocking new frontiers in clinical research, drug discovery, and patient care on a global scale.

Kimberly Powell, VP, Healthcare, NVIDIA, echoed these sentiments saying, “The convergence of AI, cloud computing, and healthcare is set to transform patient care."

How will the Partnership Help Providers?

The expanded collaboration will offer opportunities for healthcare providers, pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, and medical device developers to innovate across various domains, including clinical research, drug discovery, and care delivery, Microsoft said.

Together Microsoft Azure, NVIDIA DGX Cloud, and the NVIDIA Clara suite, can help enhance organizational efficiency and bring effectiveness to their operations.

One of the key initiatives under this collaboration is the use of NVIDIA BioNeMo on NVIDIA DGX Cloud, hosted on Microsoft Azure, to accelerate drug discovery.

BioNeMo is a generative AI platform designed for drug discovery, simplifying model development and deployment while analyzing vast datasets with unprecedented speed and precision.

By enabling scientists to identify potential drug candidates more efficiently, this initiative aims to expedite the development of life-saving therapies for patients worldwide.

Imaging-Based Diagnostics and Genomics Analysis

Another focus area is the enhancement of clinical research and care delivery through imaging-based AI diagnostic technology.

Leveraging the combined capabilities of Azure, NVIDIA MONAI, and the Nuance Precision Imaging Network (PIN), developers can build highly performant medical imaging AI models, healthcare providers can integrate these models into clinical workflows, and clinical researchers can accelerate drug discovery efforts.

Furthermore, the collaboration involves accelerating genomics analysis with the SOPHiA DDM Platform on Azure, powered by NVIDIA Parabricks.

This partnership aims to develop a streamlined, scalable, and comprehensive solution for whole-genome analysis, leveraging NVIDIA's accelerated computing capabilities and Microsoft Azure's infrastructure.

In addition to these initiatives, Microsoft and NVIDIA are working on democratizing AI for healthcare professionals through Azure AI.

This collaboration will make a suite of NVIDIA healthcare microservices available on Azure AI, enabling researchers, clinicians, and developers to explore and deploy state-of-the-art models for various healthcare applications.

NVIDIA Launches New Healthcare-focused Microservices

On Monday, NVIDIA launched a comprehensive suite of more than twenty-five new microservices tailored to meet the evolving needs of healthcare enterprises worldwide.

This initiative enables healthcare organizations to leverage cutting-edge generative AI technologies regardless of their location or cloud infrastructure.

The newly launched suite of NVIDIA healthcare microservices features optimized NVIDIA NIM AI models and workflows equipped with industry-standard APIs.

These microservices offer a wide range of functionalities, including advanced imaging, natural language processing, speech recognition, and digital biology generation, prediction, and simulation.

In addition to the AI models and workflows, NVIDIA has made available accelerated software development kits and tools such as Parabricks, MONAI, NeMo, Riva, and Metropolis as NVIDIA CUDA-X microservices.

This move aims to expedite healthcare workflows in areas such as drug discovery, medical imaging, and genomics analysis by leveraging the power of NVIDIA's CUDA-X platform.