Microsoft and Paige are developing the world’s largest artificial intelligence model to fight cancer

New York: Tech giant Microsoft has joined hands with digital pathology provider Paige to create the world’s largest image-based artificial intelligence (AI) models to fight cancer.

The new AI model is much larger than any other image-based AI model in existence today, configured with billions of parameters, the companies say.

This will help capture the subtle complexities of cancer and will be a cornerstone for the next generation of clinical applications and computational biomarkers that push the boundaries of oncology and pathology.

The AI ​​model can identify both common cancers and rare cancers that are notoriously difficult to diagnose.

“We are developing new artificial intelligence models that will provide unprecedented insights into cancer pathology.” Unleashing the power of artificial intelligence is a new step in improving healthcare to improve lives,” Desney Tan, vice president and general manager of Microsoft Health Futures, said in a statement.

Paige, a global leader in end-to-end digital pathology solutions and clinical AI, has created the first large-scale foundational model using more than a billion images from half a million pathology slides from multiple cancer types.

In the next phase of development, Paige is adding up to four million digitized microscope slides for multiple types of cancer from its unparalleled petabyte-scale clinical data archive. Paige will use Microsoft’s advanced supercomputing infrastructure to train the technology at scale and eventually deploy it to hospitals and labs around the world using Azure.

“We strongly believe that we will significantly improve the state-of-the-art in cancer imaging. By building this model, we will help improve the lives of millions of people affected by cancer every day,” said Razik Yousfi, Page’s vice president of technology, in a statement.