The National Science and Technology Developmeny Agency (NSTDA) has teamed up with the Public Health Ministry's Department of Medical Services and Ramathibodi Hospital's Faculty of Medicine, Mahidol University, to drive the use of artificial intelligence (AI) to bolster the medical sector through their project concerning medical AI data sharing.
The project, which has 120 million baht in funding, involves the research and development of open medical data for AI developers to access certain information in order to develop medical AI innovations.
The move is also part of the national AI strategy and action plan for 2022-27 to further improve Thailand's ranking in the AI Governance Readiness Index. Thailand's position improved from 59th out of 181 countries in 2021 to 31st out of 160 countries in 2022.
"AI is a growing trend globally, with estimated growth of the AI economy set to reach US$2 trillion by 2030, a 20-fold growth from 2021. Thailand aims to expand such value by 20 times within five years," Sukit Limpijumnong, NSTDA president and co-secretary general of the National AI committee, said at the signing of the memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the Department of Medical Services and Ramathibodi Hospital on the data-sharing project.
Over the past year since the establishment of the National AI Committee and the launch of the national AI strategy and action plan 2022-27, the country finished drawing up the first AI ethical and governance guidelines and opened AI service on the cloud infrastructure, with AI R&D worth 1.2 billion baht.
The MoU signing will help drive medical AI development by combining the strength of the NSTDA in terms of researchers and AI with the expertise of regulators from the ministry and related public hospitals, he said.
The collaboration in developing medical AI data sharing marks a significant step towards enabling AI researchers to access the medical database, such as chest X-rays, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and computerised tomography scan, cancer images and retinal nerve images.
The management of this data complies with the Personal Data Protection Act. This will enable AI experts to enhance, expand and further utilise the benefits of the data.
For instance, the Public Health Ministry's Department of Medical Services in collaboration with Thammasat University developed the AIChest4All software, said Mr Sukit.
This software aids doctors in accurately screening patients for lung cancer, tuberculosis, chest diseases and other abnormalities within one minute.
Chai Wutiwiwatchai, executive director of the National Electronics and Computer Technology Center (Nectec), said open data sharing is a major move in terms of medical AI. He hopes to have 500,000 images of the chest X-ray database in the AI open data sharing project.
More universities under the Department of Medical Services, including Chulalongkorn Hospital, will join the project.
Dr Chagriya Kitiyakara, director of the medical innovations development centre of Ramathibodi Hospital's Faculty of Medicine, said AI has played a key role in treatment and learning and the hospital's radiology unit has lot of data.
"More data to train the AI machine will help to speed up medical AI development in Thailand. We will support data, resources and people to the project," said Dr Chagriya.