Creating a digital ecosystem for healthcare and life sciences researchers and AI service providers to accelerate medical breakthroughs

Digital infrastructure company Equinix has collaborated with AiHPC to launch Orchestration AI (OrchAI), a dedicated open AI healthcare and life sciences platform on Platform Equinix. The strategic collaboration aims to accelerate healthcare and life sciences R&D, clinical trials and the application of advanced biomedical technologies in Hong Kong, attracting top-notch innovative enterprises and research organisations from around the world to set up operations in the city.

OrchAI addresses critical industry pain points by eliminating technological barriers and optimising resource allocation. Research and medical institutions, as well as tertiary institutes, can access OrchAI to enjoy the benefits of end-to-end digital services. These services include high-performance computing acceleration, data orchestration and manipulation, and edge solution deployment.

In addition, healthcare and life sciences institutions can directly connect to a rich ecosystem of cloud service providers through Equinix Internet Access and Equinix Fabric. This enables efficient data exchange for hospitals and medical institutions across multiple cloud environments. After deploying OrchAI on Platform Equinix, the upload speed to AWS Cloud in Hong Kong or Singapore via Equinix Internet Access has been reduced by over 90 per cent, or up to 22 times faster, compared to the public internet. The robust connectivity infrastructure enhances data scalability and ensures secure and compliant data handling. This empowers healthcare and life sciences organisations to overcome existing limitations and drive cross-innovation in medical research and clinical trials.

This collaborative effort aims to expedite the journey from research to market for innovative healthcare and life sciences solutions. By leveraging AI-powered technologies to enhance service delivery, the goal is to solidify Hong Kong's position as a crucial super-connector in the Asia-Pacific region. This will attract key healthcare stakeholders in the Greater Bay Area (GBA) and the Asia-Pacific region to conduct groundbreaking medical research in Hong Kong.

Dr Sam Chu, Founder, AiHPC, said, “The challenges posed by Hong Kong's ageing population and the city's journey to becoming an international health and medical innovation hub have highlighted the urgent need for new healthcare solutions. Our objective of establishing Hong Kong's first integrated AI and HPC ecosystem is to streamline academic research, healthcare implementation, and cross-border collaboration between Hong Kong, the Greater Bay Area and the world. Based on the professional IT services and advice offered by our technology arm Ripen, we have chosen to deploy OrchAI on Platform Equinix. Equinix's global footprint, cloud connectivity, and a vast ecosystem of AI and healthcare and life sciences stakeholders provide unparalleled infrastructure advantages, differentiating us from traditional cloud or standalone HPC solution providers in the industry.”

Joanne Hon, MD, Hong Kong, Equinix said, “Equinix has faithfully served as a digital backbone in Hong Kong for over two decades. As the demand for AI and HPC in healthcare continues to surge, our collaboration with AiHPC highlights our commitment to advancing digital capabilities in the healthcare industry. This partnership with AiHPC empowers institutions to adopt bolder approaches in addressing increasingly complex and globally interconnected healthcare challenges, propelling Hong Kong’s strategic position in the Greater Bay Area and ambition of becoming a global healthcare and life sciences innovation hub.”