Artificial Intelligence will be the MVP in the fight against the coronavirus, fueling the advancements in medical technology across the globe.

By Xische Editorial, February 4, 2020

The global response to China’s coronavirus outbreak is breathtaking in its scope and organisation. It’s also humbling. Despite incredible advancements in technology, a new virus still has the power to isolate the world’s second-largest economy, send global markets into a tailspin, and leave close to 50 million people in lockdown. Any black swan of this scale carries with it profound lessons for professionals and leaders worldwide. On the national level, countries are reevaluating their exposure to global pandemics, their levels of preparedness, and the strength of their local knowledge-economies to assist in finding a cure. 

Nestled between East and West, the UAE is a particularly critical link in the global response to the coronavirus. Not only is the country one of the world’s primary transit points but the UAE has steadily invested in medical technology for the past several years. With the region’s largest and most robust knowledge economy, UAE-based engineers are on the forefront of creating technology that can help identify, curtail, and monitor global pandemics such as the coronavirus. If there is any silver lining to this terrible virus, it is that the UAE and other small countries in the emerging world are demonstrating just how pivotal they are in the global medical preparedness arena. 

Before we go deeper into the UAE perspective, it’s important to consider China’s reaction to the maelstrom that is the coronavirus. Throughout the current crisis, all eyes have been on China and its efforts to contain the virus and ability to be transparent about the gravity of the threat. Compared with the SARS virus outbreak in the early 2000s, China has been relatively open about the current outbreak. The country has built a brand-new hospital in just eight days to handle those infected with the new coronavirus. The facility in Wuhan has more than 1000 beds to accommodate anyone in the city confirmed to have the virus. Another hospital with even more capacity is scheduled to open by the time you are reading this article. And China is using all manner of technology from facial recognition to machine learning to try to contain the spread of the virus. 

Shifting back to the UAE perspective, there are two primary takeaways to consider at this stage. The first is that technology is playing an important role both in monitoring the outbreak and in the race to design a vaccine. Artificial intelligence (AI) has been important in this regard and considering the UAE’s commitment to AI as a national priority, it’s critical that engineers closely monitor how the technology is being deployed and find ways to positively disrupt the process. 

Consider the role that AI is playing in the development of new drugs including the possible vaccine to the coronavirus. The Financial Times reports that new drugs are able to pass clinical trials much more quickly because of AI and machine-learning algorithms. The paper notes that “investors are pouring billions of dollars into companies that are accelerating drug development using AI. On average it costs about $2.6bn to develop a new treatment by traditional methods, but the use of AI could make drug discovery faster, cheaper and more effective for patients with a range of illnesses from cancers to heart disease. So far, machine learning algorithms, combined with troves of patient data, have been used to successfully expand the number and types of patients who can benefit from existing medicines. But the invention of entirely new drugs by AI that are both clinically safe and effective in humans has been harder to achieve.”

Given the rapid speed at which the coronavirus is spreading (and wreaking havoc on global markets), there is obvious incentive towards any tool that can speed up the process of evaluation and get drugs into the hands of people that need them.  Developing these tools requires further spending on medical research and creating the right infrastructure for innovation to take root. This is where the UAE is making decisive moves. From world-class institutions like the Cleveland Clinic in Abu Dhabi to Dubai Healthcare City, the country is building one of the most robust medical research infrastructures anywhere in the world. 

This investment will ensure that the UAE is at the forefront of combating global diseases and pandemics such as the coronavirus. The country has already had a major impact on the fight against diseases such as Polio. Medical technology is a critical facet of a well-rounded and expansive knowledge economy. We don’t know how long it will take to contain the coronavirus but it’s clear that the international community will remain vulnerable to the threat of pandemics for decades to come. The only way to ensure that we have the upper hand is through medical research and innovations in medical technology. And that’s where the UAE can lead in the region.