Cleveland Clinic and IBM Partner on HPC, AI and Quantum Computing – insideHPC

ARMONK, N.Y.andCLEVELAND Cleveland Clinicand IBM (NYSE:IBM) have announced a planned 10-year partnership to establish the Discovery Accelerator, a joint effort to advance the pace of discovery in healthcare and life sciences through the use of high performance computing on the hybrid cloud, artificial intelligence (AI) and quantum computing technologies.

The collaboration is anticipated to build a robust research and clinical infrastructure to empower big data medical research in ethical, privacy preserving ways, discoveries for patient care and novel approaches to public health threats such as the COVID-19 pandemic. Through the Discovery Accelerator,the researchers plan to use advanced computational technology to generate and analyze data to help enhance research in the newGlobal Center for Pathogen Research & Human Health,in areas such as: genomics, single cell transcriptomics, population health, clinical applications, and chemical and drug discovery.

Through this innovative collaboration, we have a unique opportunity to bring the future to life, saidTom Mihaljevic, M.D., CEO and President of Cleveland Clinic. These new computing technologies can help revolutionize discovery in the life sciences.The Discovery Accelerator will enable our renowned teams to build a forward-looking digital infrastructure and help transform medicine, while training the workforce of the future and potentially growing our economy.

The COVID-19 pandemic has spawned one of the greatest races in the history of scientific discovery one that demands unprecedented agility and speed, saidArvind Krishna, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of IBM. At the same time, science is experiencing a change of its own with high performance computing, hybrid cloud, data, AI, and quantum computing, being used in new ways to break through long-standing bottlenecks in scientific discovery. Our new collaboration with Cleveland Clinic will combine their world-renowned expertise in healthcare and life sciences with IBMs next-generation technologies to make scientific discovery faster, and the scope of that discovery larger than ever.

Quantum will make the impossible possible, and whenthe Governor and I announced the Cleveland Innovation District earlier this year, this was the kind of innovative investment I hoped it would advance, said Ohio Lt. GovernorJon Husted, Director of InnovateOhio. A partnership between these two great institutions will putCleveland, andOhio, on the map for advanced medical and scientific research, providing a unique opportunity to improve treatment options for patients and solve some of our greatest healthcare challenges.

The Discovery Accelerator will serve as the technology foundation for Cleveland Clinics newGlobal Center for Pathogen Research & Human Health,announced last month as part of theCleveland Innovation District. The center, supported by a$500 millioninvestment from theState of Ohio, Jobs Ohio and Cleveland Clinic, brings together a research team focused on broadening understanding of viral pathogens, virus-induced cancers, genomics, immunology and immunotherapies. It will build upon Cleveland Clinics existing programs and expertise, with newly recruited world leaders in immunology, cancer biology, immune-oncology and infectious disease research as well as technology development and education. Researchers will expand critical work on studying, preparing and protecting against emerging pathogens and virus-related diseases.

The pace of progress in science historically has been limited by bottlenecks. Researchers are increasingly working to overcome these bottlenecks with the application of AI, quantum computing and hybrid cloud technologies. New technologies are enabling accelerated methods of discovery that include deep search, AI and quantum-enriched simulation, generative models, and cloud-based AI-driven autonomous labs. Leveraging these combined innovations will supercharge new generations of information technology,fuel important advances in science, and IBM will provide access to a variety of research and commercial technologies, education and tools to assist Cleveland Clinic in accelerating discovery in healthcare and life science, includingRoboRXN, a cloud-based platform that combines AI models and robots to help scientists design and synthesize new molecules remotely; theIBM Functional Genomics Platform, a cloud-based repository and research tool, which uses novel approaches to reveal the molecular features in viral and bacterial genomes to help accelerate discovery of molecular targets required for drug design, test development and treatment;Deep Search,which helps researchers access structured and unstructured data quickly; andHigh-Performance Hybrid Cloud Computingtechnologies that can enable researchers to burst their workloads into the cloud and access the resources they need at scale.

Quantum computing has the potential to have an immense impact on key healthcare challenges, such as the discovery of new molecules that can serve as the basis of new pharmaceutical breakthroughs and spur the development of new medicines and could help enhance the ability to derive deep insight from complex data that is at the heart of some of the largest challenges in healthcare.

The Discovery Accelerator will leverage IBMs multi-year roadmap for advancing quantum computing, bringing its revolutionary capabilities into the hands of scientists and practitioners in healthcare and life sciences. In addition to an on-premises quantum system, Cleveland Clinic will also have access to IBMs fleet of currently more than 20 quantum systems, accessible via the cloud. IBM is targeting to unveil its first next generation 1,000+ qubit quantum system in 2023, and Cleveland Clinic is planned to be the site of the first private-sector on-premises system.

A significant pillar of the program plans to focus on educating the workforce of the future and creating jobs to grow the economy. The 10-year collaboration plans to include education and workforce development opportunities related to quantum computing.

The innovative educational curriculum will be designed for participants from high school to professional level and offer training and certification programs in data science and quantum computing, building the skilled workforce needed for cutting-edge data science research of the future. Cleveland Clinic and IBM plan to hold research symposia and workshops with joint sessions by IBM and academic researchersfor academia, industry, government and the general public.

Read the rest here:

Cleveland Clinic and IBM Partner on HPC, AI and Quantum Computing - insideHPC