Last week, Saudi Arabia launched the largest-of-its-kind project in the region’s health and medical sector, announcing a new electronic patient records system known as EPIC. This week, the Kingdom has announced another landmark development within its health sector, this time a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with renowned health and well-being innovator Philips.
The Saudi Data and Artificial Intelligence Authority (SDAIA) and the Netherlands-headquartered company have entered a public-private partnership to incorporate Artificial Intelligence (AI) into the Kingdom’s healthcare system. This partnership aims to expand the provision of AI services in Saudi Arabia’s health sector to improve services and health education, as well as treatment in hospitals and in patients’ homes.
In addition, as part of efforts to develop integrated solutions that will contribute to modernizing health provision in the country, SDAIA and Philips plan to set up an AI Knowledge Hub in order to boost local talent in the field and to advance expertise in developing locally relevant AI applications.
Speaking on the new agreement, Dr. Abdullah Bin Sharaf Al-Ghamdi, President of SDAIA, said, “We, at SDAIA, through the National Strategy for Data & AI (NSDAI), seek to fully utilise the potential of data and AI and support their applications in all relevant sectors […] Today, this agreement is part of our efforts to promote advanced technologies in the health field, support expertise exchange, and develop national capabilities, which will enhance the quality of health services, create new job opportunities, and elevate our national economy to become a data and AI-driven economy.”
The partnership between Saudi Arabia and Philips, known as a world leader in healthcare, lifestyle, and lighting, is in line with key objectives in the Kingdom’s Vision 2030 focused on the diversification of its economy into one that is data and knowledge centric.
