Healthcare represents one of the biggest opportunities in deep learning, and we’re partnering with Canon Medical Systems, Japan’s largest medical systems supplier, to develop the research infrastructure to help support it.

The healthcare sector needs to analyze scientific reports from around the world, while simultaneously coordinating a variety of patient data to determine the most appropriate treatment options.

Given the huge volumes of data involved, big data analysis via deep learning will play a major role in the development of optimized healthcare delivery systems and support early detection and assisted diagnosis.

At the same time, medical institutions wanting to use deep learning for independent research need hardware for analysis, systems for the collection, collation and analysis of in-house data, and knowledge of deep learning processes and techniques.

NVIDIA and Canon Medical Systems expect to make a significant contribution to promoting the use of data-intensive deep learning techniques in medical and related research, as well as to driving the uptake of AI in the healthcare sector.

“Canon Medical aims to improve the quality and efficiency of medical services,” said Kiyoshi Imai, vice president and general manager of the Healthcare IT division at Canon Medical Systems. “Our collaboration with NVIDIA will accelerate AI research and provide high-quality medical services using AI, such as image recognition, in the future.”

“We’re partnering with Canon Medical Systems to apply deep learning for early detection and diagnostic support systems that will enable us to address a range of challenges posed by a rapidly aging population,” said Masataka Osaki, vice president of Corporate Sales and NVIDIA Japan Country Manager. “We’re also working together to enhance the global competitiveness of medical and research organizations and contribute to the medical industry of Japan.”

Canon Medical Systems will use NVIDIA DGX systems to process large volumes of medical data generated by Abierto VNA, the proprietary, in-house, medical data management system it launched in January.

DGX systems feature NVIDIA Tesla data center GPUs powered by Volta, the world’s most advanced GPU architecture. Among the portfolio is NVIDIA DGX Station, an AI workstation that has the computing capacity of four server racks in a desk-friendly package, while consuming only 1/20 the power.

The systems include NVIDIA’s specially optimized AI software and Canon Medical System’s graphical user interface, which provides full support for the design, deployment and operation of advanced deep learning algorithms.

Abierto VNA and DGX Systems on Exhibition at ITEM

Deep learning usually requires extensive programming and data science skills, however, the system from Canon Medical Systems and NVIDIA guides users through all the steps involved in the deep learning process, from generating training data with the image viewer to setting up the NVIDIA learning environment.

Canon Medical Systems will be providing demonstrations on how to implement deep learning at medical institutions via Abierto VNA and the NVIDIA DGX systems at the International Technical Exhibition of Medical Imaging (ITEM) at the Japan Radiology Congress, April 13-15, in the exhibition hall at Pacifico Yokohama.