The UK government has announced a £140m artificial intelligence (AI) award to be supported by the National Health Service (NHS) AI Lab to fast track testing and adoption of the most promising tools by the NHS.
“The Department of Health and Social Care is expected to invite applications for the funding twice a year through open competition. The funding competition will be run through the Accelerated Access Collaborative (ACC) with the first call to focus on projects that work on screening, diagnosis, system efficiency, and clinical decision support,” said Secretary of State for Health and Social Care Matt Hancock.
The NHS AI Lab was launched in August 2019 to enable cross-government, industry and academic collaboration for using AI for better health care across the country. Read more on Government Computing.
The AI Award fund will be open to multiple companies, and will be allocated based on the applications received. The competition will run for five weeks and winners will be “selected based on their potential to transform patient care, support staff and save lives”, according to a Department of Health and Social Care statement, see more in Computer Weekly.