Google licenses its AI model to help Indian companies detect blindness in diabetic patients

New Delhi: Google has announced new collaborations in India aimed at leveraging artificial intelligence (AI) to address critical challenges in healthcare, sustainability, and agriculture. These partnerships aim to highlight Google's commitment to using AI for societal good and its focus on India as a key market for innovation.

"At Google, we're not just building AI, but are helping shape a future where AI benefits everyone. Collaborating with key Indian organizations, our focused research in India across language understanding, healthcare, agriculture and sustainability is helping tackle many of the country’s unique challenges and creating AI-led solutions that will improve billions of lives. We're excited about the progress we're making and are confident that AI – and our concerted work with committed local partners – will play a transformative role in solving some of society’s biggest challenges," said Dr Manish Gupta, Research Director, Google DeepMind.

In the healthcare sector, Google is partnering with Forus Health, AuroLab, and Perceptra to scale screening for diabetic retinopathy, a leading cause of blindness. Google's AI model will be licensed to these organizations to support six million screenings over the next ten years at no cost to patients. Early research has already shown the model's effectiveness in detecting the condition.

Sunny Virmani, Group Product Manager, Health AI Research, Google, said “From our initial research to the first patient screening in Madurai, India, we’ve been committed to translating AI's potential into meaningful change for people globally. And now the partnerships with Forus Health, AuroLab, and Perceptra are helping us expand on this commitment with our technology, as a global network of innovators rallies together to eradicate preventable blindness due to diabetic retinopathy."

Advancing sustainable waste management

Google's open-source machine learning model, CircularNet, is being used by Saahas Zero Waste to improve plastic waste sorting and recycling. Powered by TensorFlow, CircularNet helps Saahas Zero Waste identify plastic waste and ensure its quality, reducing landfill strain and improving revenue generation.

Empowering farmers with AI

In the agriculture sector, Google's Agricultural Landscape Understanding (ALU) Research API is providing farmers with valuable insights into their land. By combining satellite imagery with AI, the API can help farmers optimize resource allocation, improve farm management practices, and make data-driven decisions.

These partnerships demonstrate Google's commitment to using AI to address pressing global challenges and its belief in the potential of AI to transform lives in India and beyond.