Universities secure £12 million boost for AI innovation

The University of Manchester is to be part of  a research hub, led by the University of Edinburgh,  that will focus on developing AI tools to help revolutionise the field of healthcare.

The EPSRC AI Hub for Causality in Healthcare AI with Real Data (CHAI) will develop new ways of unearthing important links in complex health data.

The hub will develop ways to use AI to enable the early prediction of debilitating diseases thanks to the £12m funding from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC).

It is part of the nine centres announced as part of EPSRC’s £80m UK-wide investment in applying AI to real world data and research.

CHAI aims to develop AI that can empower decision making tools to improve challenging tasks such as the early prediction, diagnosis and prevention of disease, and – crucially – to improve the safety of such technology in healthcare.

Researchers hope to apply this new technology to tackle key societal health challenges such as understanding infection, Alzheimer’s, improving cancer treatments, social care, diabetes, and rehabilitation.

CHAI will be led by The University of Edinburgh’s Professor Sotirios Tsaftaris, Canon Medical/RAEng Chair in Healthcare AI.

Professor Tsaftaris said: “I'm delighted that the University of Edinburgh will be leading this world-leading consortium to develop next generation Causal AI. Causal AI holds tremendous promise for creating a new generation of AI solutions that are more robust, fair, safe, and transparent. Causal AI offers a step change in what AI can do for health with the proper safeguards. To fulfil this vision CHAI brings together an incredible team from across the UK (Imperial, Manchester, UCL, Exeter, KCL), several affiliated researchers and domain experts, as well as more than 50 world-leading partner organisations to work together to co-create solutions thoroughly integrating ethical and societal aspects.

“I am extremely excited to lead this hub, particularly because of the strong people focus ensuring that we prepare the next generation of researchers in such cutting-edge AI methods.”

Dr Matthew Sperrin, who directs the University of Manchester part of the hub said: “I am so excited to be a part of the new CHAI hub. The focus on causality aligns with key strengths at the University, and ensures that we can build AI for healthcare that is robust, fair, and directly applicable to decision support. This is a genuine opportunity for us to transform the role of AI in health.”