The pandemic has dealt a body blow to many of the world's cities. As they seek to recover from the economic and social fall-out from COVID-19, municipalities are stepping up efforts to deploy big data and artificial intelligence (AI) to improve urban life. Equipped with a real-time view of what is happening across a city, municipalities hope to be able to make timely interventions, while spurring the development of innovative services. "We are using AI to become the eyes of the city," Maarten Sukel, AI lead at the City of Amsterdam, told a recent Science Business webinar entitled: How will real-time data reshape our cities? Although municipalities generally lack the granular behavioural data available to the major Internet platforms, advances in AI are making it easier to analyse the growing volume of data being captured by street level cameras and other sensors.

A major new report led by the Novartis Foundation and Microsoft shows how investment in data and AI is critical to drive the health system improvements needed to respond to and recover from the COVID-19 pandemic and the world's other greatest healthcare challenges. Reimagining Global Health through Artificial Intelligence: The Roadmap to AI Maturity was developed by the Broadband Commission Working Group on Digital and AI in Health, which the Novartis Foundation and Microsoft co-chair. Based on a landscape review of over 300 existing use cases of AI in health, the report shows how AI is already disrupting health and care. It then presents a roadmap to help countries use AI to transform their health systems from being reactive to proactive, predictive, and even preventive. Low- and middle-income countries (LMIC) that grapple with systemic health challenges such as a shortage of health workers, underserved populations, rapid urbanization and disinformation have the most to gain from AI – but they also have the most to lose.

On Wednesday, Microsoft Corp. announced AI for Health, a new $40 million, five-year program and part of the AI for Good initiative, that will leverage artificial intelligence (AI) technology to empower researchers and organizations addressing some of the world's toughest challenges in health. "Artificial intelligence has the potential to solve some of humanity's greatest challenges, like improving the health of communities around the world," said Brad Smith, president, Microsoft. "We know that putting this powerful technology into the hands of experts tackling this problem can accelerate new solutions and improve access for underserved populations. That's why we created AI for Health." In a new era of tech intensity, in which technology is reshaping every organization and becoming embedded in the fabric of every aspect of our lives, digital advances will continue to reshape our world in profound ways.

The Novartis Foundation is sharpening its focus to concentrate fully on reimagining how data, digital and AI can transform global health. This new mandate builds on 40 years of striving for sustainable impact on health in low-income populations, most recently by focusing on leprosy elimination and cardiovascular health, in addition to digital health.