Alibaba AI Can Identify Coronavirus with 96% Accuracy

With more and more places getting hit with the coronavirus, hospitals are starting to get overwhelmed. They simply don’t have enough medical personnel to keep up with the influx of patients. One company is turning to artificial intelligence to identify new cases of the virus.

Alibaba claims to have a new AI-powered system that can detect the coronavirus with an accuracy of up to 96%. It was developed by the company’s Damo Academy research institute. Researchers trained the AI with sample data from more than 5,000 confirmed cases. The AI was able to look at CT scans and differentiate those infected with coronavirus versus ordinary pneumonia. The algorithm included the latest treatment guidelines and recently published research.

The system can complete the recognition process in under 20 seconds. Human doctors can take between five and twenty minutes to analyze a CT scan of a patient. They sometimes have to go through more than 300 images.

Alibaba Coronavirus AI to be Implemented in 100 Hospitals

The new diagnostic tool was first implemented at the new Qiboshan Hospital in Zhengzhou. The hospital was recently built to treat those infected with the coronavirus. Officials plan to implement the system in more than 100 hospitals in the provinces of Hubei, Guangdong, and Anhui.

This is not the first time Alibaba has turned to AI to combat the coronavirus. They also developed an AI-powered public health service tool that provides information related to the coronavirus. The system can answer most questions regarding the pandemic via an app. It was first deployed in the Zhejiang province on Jan. 27.

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