Nvidia wants to bring “physical AI” to hospitals, using robots to take X-rays, deliver linens, and more. This is part of Nvidia’s plan to corner the advanced robots market and cement the AI giant’s future. Nvidia has invested in and partnered with numerous companies. Healthcare Company of the Year.
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Nvidia is digging deeper into healthcare, and the tech giant has big ambitions to bring AI to every part of the hospital.
AI giants are already some investments We built partnerships in digital health and biotechnology. Virtual care and drug discovery.
After the massive development of large-scale language models over the past two years, the next wave of AI will turn medical devices into robots, said Kimberly Powell, vice president of healthcare at Nvidia.
“We’re going to have this physical AI that will turn the entire hospital into AI,” Powell told BI. “Eyes will do the work for you, robots will perform tasks that can be automated, and smart digital devices will be used. So we’re really excited about this and we’re investing a lot. ”
In his keynote address at this year’s HLTH conference in Las Vegas, Powell said physical AI refers to “models that can perceive, understand, and interact with the physical world.”
She told Business Insider there are countless applications in healthcare for this next wave. Nvidia is building its technology stack and partnering with select startups to spearhead the company’s push for AI into more healthcare systems.
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This effort is part of Nvidia’s vision to corner the emerging advanced robotics market in order to maintain its position in the technology stratosphere.
Powell said it will take “several years” for the healthcare industry to fully embrace the wave of physical AI. But with key components of physical AI already being adopted in medical settings, that transformation may be closer than we think.
HLTH
Hospital “digital twin”
While recent advances in AI have enabled more advanced robot development, robots still pose unique challenges for Nvidia and other companies developing them.
Powell said these physical AI systems essentially require three computers working together, one to train the AI and one to create a digital twin called a “digital twin.” It simulates the physical world in space, and the third machine operates a robot.
Not only can the robot receive and respond to input from the real world, such as movement and sound, but it can also be trained physically, for example in the grip and amount of pressure needed to use a scalpel. Masu.
To address the challenge of digital twins in healthcare, Nvidia is partnering with IT solutions provider Mark III. Mark III is working with health systems like the University of Florida Health to create simulations of hospital environments and use them to develop AI.
Hospitals can also use these digital twins to train clinicians, Powell said, by first teaching them how to perform a specific surgery in a virtual operating room.
Physical AI is also becoming more sophisticated for real-time surgery. Nvidia is an investor in robotics company Moon Surgical. Moon Surgical uses Nvidia’s Holoscan platform for its surgical support robots. The robot provides an additional arm for holding and manipulating surgical instruments, such as adjusting cameras used inside the body during laparoscopic surgery.
But Nvidia sees robots being used far beyond the operating room, Powell said. This includes monitoring patients in hospital rooms for falls and delivering fresh linens. She pointed to Mayo Clinic, which earlier this year began deploying its own linen delivery robots on its Florida campus, autonomously delivering fresh sheets from room to room.
“Imagine one day having a room where you can just walk into an X-ray scan. This scanner has a camera that knows where you are near the scanner. , it will tell you where you are.”When you stand in front of the scanner, it will be x-rayed and quality checked,” Powell said.
Intuitive Surgical’s long-standing surgical robotics product, called the da Vinci Surgical System, helps surgeons operate on soft tissue. AP Photo/Courtesy of Intuitive Surgical, Inc.
Nvidia’s digital health ambitions
Nvidia doesn’t want to become a health care company and has no plans to acquire other health care companies, Powell said. But in the digital health space, the AI giant is putting its money and technology behind several startups.
Medical writing company Abridge is arguably Nvidia’s hottest healthcare focus. Nvidia’s venture capital arm NVentures invested in Abridge in March. Abridge is currently reportedly raising further funding at a pre-money valuation of $2.5 billion. Powell said Nvidia is conducting a “thorough audio study” with Abridge.
Hippocratic AI, backed by General Catalyst, also secured funding from Nvidia in September after partnering with the company this spring to develop a healthcare AI agent that can video chat with patients.
Nvidia is also partnering with Microsoft to power the next generation of AI startups in healthcare and life sciences. At HLTH, the companies will integrate Nvidia Inception, Nvidia’s accelerator, and Microsoft for Startups, Microsoft’s free product platform for founders, to provide cloud credits, AI tools, and experts to startups in healthcare, life sciences, and beyond. announced that it would provide support. companies.
