IIT Delhi, AIIMS to Launch AI Healthcare Research Centre

• IIT Delhi and AIIMS sign MoU to launch an AI Centre of Excellence for healthcare.
• CoE to support national health programs like cancer, TB, and maternal care.
• Backed by ₹330 crore grant, it will run as a non-profit and seek private funding.

The Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Delhi announced that it had signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) for a Centre of Excellence (CoE) to research artificial intelligence (AI) solutions to challenges in health care.

The MoU comes one year after the Ministry of Education received a ₹330 crore grant to the institutes under its Make AI in India, Make AI Work for India initiative. People familiar with the details said the CoE was intended to serve as the executing vehicle for the grant.

On the collaboration, AIIMS director M Srinivas said the MoU is the beginning of far-reaching collaborative research that has the potential to revolutionize healthcare in the country.

Rangan Banerjee, director of IIT Delhi, called the partnership a potential transformation of AI for affordable healthcare, and noted the institutes were excited to be developing this national Centre of Excellence and look forward to the impact on the lives of Indians.

The institutes also noted that the AI-CoE will focus on developing AI-based solutions primarily to support major national health programmes.

Chetan Arora, chief project manager, who will lead the AI-CoE from IIT Delhi, told Business Standard the CoE would be taken as a Section 8 company (non-profit organisation).

He further stated that as per the initial proposal, the CoE will assess at least five national health programs that include the national programs on cancer, maternity and child health, blindness, and tuberculosis (TB).

“The CoE will be dynamic and adjust to the demands of our national health programmes and the pace of AI technology,” Arora said.

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According to industry insiders, the company is being proposed to be run by an independent board of directors, which may include secretaries from the Ministries of Education, Health, and Electronics and Information Technology.

“The NPO can be led by a chief executive officer (CEO), who will be selected at a later stage,” an AIIMS official said on condition of anonymity.

The CoE is to operate as a national resource with the ability to seek additional funding from private sources, as well as alumni networks. “While the initial funding from the government grant is for four years, the CoE would also be open to collaborate with other partners to develop AI solutions,” the official quoted above said.