At its annual artificial intelligence-focused GTC conference in San Jose, Nvidia outlined several collaborations with medtech developers to advance the technologies behind robotic surgery and digital imaging.
Several are centered around the development of its Isaac for Healthcare medical device simulations, currently in early access. It includes pretrained AI models for sensors and anatomy, so devicemakers can test out their systems in a virtual environment.
GE HealthCare said it plans to employ the platform to help build autonomous imaging systems—including X-ray and ultrasound hardware controlled by robotic arms that can respond to patient placement using machine vision technologies.
“The healthcare industry is one of the most important applications of AI, as the demand for healthcare services far exceeds the supply,” Nvidia’s VP of healthcare, Kimberly Powell, said in a statement.
The two companies noted that, while X-ray and ultrasound are the two most common diagnostic imaging modalities, nearly two-thirds of people around the world still lack access to the hardware and trained providers.
“We look forward to taking advantage of physical AI for autonomous imaging systems with Nvidia technology to improve patient access and address the challenges of growing workloads and staffing shortages in healthcare,” said Roland Rott, GE HealthCare’s imaging president and CEO.
Other early adopters of the Isaac system include Moon Surgical, Neptune Medical and Xcath, according to Nvidia.
“Instead of training our AI using real OR data, we'll be able to simulate various OR environments, use them to generate synthetic data via intra and perioperative experiences to ultimately train our AI to understand and interact with the physical world around it,” Moon Surgical CEO Anne Osdoit said in a statement.
The former Fierce 15 winner’s Maestro robot also uses Nvidia’s Holoscan hardware for on-device AI computing—and received an FDA clearance this week for its ScoPilot program to help locally control the surgeon’s visualizations in real-time.
Neptune Medical, meanwhile, will tap Isaac for its gastrointestinal robotics approach, and Xcath aims to advance its remote-controlled system for treating stroke.
At the same time, Nvidia also forged ties with the endovascular robot maker Stereotaxis—accepting the company into its Nvidia Connect software development program—and launched a collaboration with Hyperfine focused on AI image reconstruction for its portable Swoop brain MRI system.