Healthcare research in Singapore is set to benefit greatly from the signing of new collaborations between NVIDIA, the National Supercomputing Centre (NSCC) Singapore and SingHealth, the nation’s largest group of healthcare institutions.
The public-private partnerships were unveiled at the opening ceremony of the SupercomputingAsia 2022 (SCA22), a hybrid conference held at Suntec Singapore Convention & Exhibition Centre from March 1 to 3. Over 800 participants from more than 14 countries and 65 different organisations attended in person or virtually.
Under the agreements, the three organisations will collaborate to build a complete innovation environment with supercomputing infrastructure capabilities, software and AI tools, and healthcare use cases to apply these capabilities and tools.
“These public-private partnerships linking the entire value chain of infrastructure, software, digital tools, and researchers will accelerate scientific outcomes and support Singapore’s healthcare and medical services. The NSCC, SingHealth and NVIDIA agreements serve to deepen collaboration and will open up many more possibilities in other fields of medicine, beyond the initial use cases,” said Dr. Janil Puthucheary, Senior Minister of State for Communications and Information and Health, Minister-in-Charge of GovTech, and Guest-of-Honour at SCA22.
Access to Tools and AI Models
NVIDIA will provide access to software development kits, open-source pretrained AI models and high performance computing (HPC) expertise to help accelerate research in Singapore.
NSCC and SingHealth will provide clinicians and researchers with access to supercomputers as well as NVIDIA’s AI and deep learning software to advance medical research and innovations.
One project involves using AI to diagnose cardiovascular disease, which accounts for 20 percent of deaths in Singapore and 33 percent globally. AI can help clinicians assess patients’ test results more efficiently and accurately. This can reduce the time needed for diagnosis and allow for better and more timely patient care.
According to Professor Kenneth Kwek, Deputy Group CEO (Innovation & Informatics), SingHealth, the adoption of emerging technologies is a game-changer in helping SingHealth enhance care delivery and optimise healthcare resources with the goal to improve clinical outcomes and the experience for patients.
“Through this exciting collaboration with NSCC and NVIDIA, supercomputers and software specialised for AI and deep learning will be made readily available and accessible to our colleagues, to aid them in doing breakthrough research and developing new innovations that will transform and shape the future of healthcare,” he said.
Critical National Resource
“Supercomputing power is a critical national resource that is crucial in enabling many research
projects that impact the economy and society, now and for the future. NSCC is excited to work with SingHealth and NVIDIA to benefit local researchers in an important field like healthcare,” said Mr. Peter Ho, Chairman, NSCC Steering Committee.
NSCC expects to commission its next-generation ASPIRE 2A supercomputer, which is accelerated by NVIDIA A100 Tensor Core GPUs for HPC and AI workloads. Ten times more powerful than its predecessor, ASPIRE 2A will provide enhanced computational resources to meet Singapore’s needs over the next several years.
As part of the agreement, NSCC is collaborating with SingHealth to develop and deploy a supercomputer at SingHealth’s Singapore General Hospital Campus to support medical research and innovation.
More Than Healthcare
Beyond healthcare, the tools provided under the collaborations will support research in other areas, including climate science and data centre operations.
“From weather forecasting to life sciences, NVIDIA’s accelerated computing and software drive many of the world’s fastest supercomputers and HPC systems, giving researchers the power they need for scientific breakthroughs,” said Dennis Ang, Senior Director, Enterprise Business, ASEAN and ANZ Region, NVIDIA. “Our collaborations with NSCC and SingHealth will help to grow research and innovation in healthcare, as well as other key fields related to climate research and digital twin simulation in Singapore.”
From left:
Dennis Ang, Senior Director, Enterprise Business (ASEAN and ANZ Region), NVIDIA
Dr Janil Puthucheary, Senior Minister of State, Ministry of Communications and Information & Ministry of Health, Minister-in-Charge of GovTech
A/Prof Tan Tin Wee, Chief Executive, National Supercomputing Centre (NSCC) Singapore
Mr Peter Ho, Chairman, National Supercomputing Centre (NSCC) Singapore Steering Committee
Prof Kenneth Kwek, Deputy Group Chief Executive Officer (Innovation & Informatics), SingHealth