Google powers up AI, machine learning accelerator for healthcare

With the mandate of fostering an ecosystem of applied machine learning startups, Google on Wednesday revealed the first four companies to join its Launchpad Studio and said this initial track is aimed squarely at healthcare and biotech. It's no secret that Google and rivals Amazon, Apple, IBM and Microsoft are eyeing the $2.7 trillion healthcare market as fertile ground for technological disruption -- though it appears Google is the first of the titans to formally establish a program for working with startups specific to the industry. "Launchpad Studio is the accelerator engine of Google," said Malika Cantor, Program Manager for Launchpad Studio. "We're focused on machine learning startups, we look at technology problems and want to bridge the gap between healthcare and the frontier tech industry because there's a lot of promise but general skepticism about the role AI and machine learning will play." The first four startups, Augmedix, BrainQ, Byteflies and Cytovale, get what Google deftly described as "equity-free support," and access to Google mentors, community engagement as well as datasets and testing environments for prototyping, as examples.