On August 12, the UK health secretary Matt Hancock announced the plan to invest £250m for a new National Artificial Intelligence Lab, which will seek to improve the public healthcare system in the country. The lab will be built to solve some of healthcare’s toughest challenges, including earlier cancer detection, discovering new treatments and relieving the workload on public health workers. 

The lab will aim to bring together academics, specialists, and tech firms to solve some of the biggest challenges in healthcare, which includes cancer detection, dementia treatments, and more personalised care. 

According to the National Health Service (NHS) of UK, the new AI lab will be a place to fully harness the benefits of AI that can augment the ability of clinical teams across the NHS within safe and ethical boundaries.

The investment would also support the NHS Long Term Plan to use AI to assist clinicians in removing variations in care. The AI lab will be set up in partnership with the Accelerated Access Collaborative.

“Carefully targeted AI is now ready for practical application in health services, and the investment announced today is another step in the right direction to help the NHS become a world leader in using these important technologies,” said Simon Stevens, chief executive of NHS England.

“In the first instance it should help personalise NHS screening and treatments for cancer, eye disease and a range of other conditions, as well as freeing up staff time, and our new NHS AI Lab will ensure the benefits of NHS data and innovation are fully harnessed for patients in this country,” Stevens added.