Microsoft brings AI to healthcare with new partner program - SiliconANGLE

Already established as a major player in artificial intelligence, Microsoft Corp.. is aiming to make the technology a foundation of the healthcare industry with the launch Thursday of a new partnership program called Healthcare NExT. The program brings together Microsoft's latest innovations in AI with its Azure cloud computing capabilities in an effort to advance medical research and improve patient care, said Peter Lee, corporate vice president of Microsoft Research NExT. He added that the new program will "deeply integrate greenfield research and health technology product development," while also helping the company establish a new model for strategic health industry partnerships. "Our goal is to enable a new wave of innovation and impact using Microsoft's deep AI expertise and global-scale cloud," Lee wrote in a blog post announcing the program. As part of the initiative, Microsoft is teaming up with the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center on the first Healthcare NExT strategic research partnership.