LONDON - Five new medical technology centres using AI to supercharge disease diagnosis will open across the United Kingdom next year, the government announced today.

In a bold step forward for the UK's AI health strategy, the government-funded clinics will open in Leeds, Oxford, Coventry, Glasgow, and London. Using machine vision and medical imaging technologies, the centres are designed to digitalise scans and biopsies, improve diagnostic outcomes, and ultimately develop new products which can detect diseases early.

The £50m announcement comes as part of an initiative by the government to use AI to improve healthcare and treatments, which they claim can deliver better clinical decisions for patients and free up more staff resources for direct patient care across the NHS. Each centre will receive £10m from the Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund, a government investment programme, and will be located out of universities and NHS facilities.

Greg Clark, Secretary of State for Business, Energy, and Industrial Strategy, said: "AI has the potential to revolutionise healthcare and improve lives for the better. The innovation at these centres will help diagnose disease earlier to give people more options when it comes to their treatment, and make reporting more efficient, freeing up time for our much-admired NHS staff to spend on direct patient care."

Chief executive of UK Research and Innovation, Sir Mark Walport, shared his praise for the focus on the early diagnosis of illness, which he claims can "greatly increase the chances of successful treatment and save lives."

"The centres announced today bring together the teams that will develop artificial intelligence tools that can analyse medical images varying from x-rays to microscopic sections from tissue biopsies. Artificial intelligence has the potential to revolutionise the speed and accuracy of medical diagnosis."

The news follows an announcement back in April that thousands of NHS staff will be trained to use robotics and artificial intelligence to improve patient treatment.

Source: National Health Executive