Microsoft has expanded its healthcare artificial intelligence offering beyond eyecare to target cardiology.

Launched last year as the Microsoft Intelligent Network for Eyecare (MINE), the work initially aimed to tackle visions problems through a collaboration with academic institutions in India, Brazil, Australia and the US.

The newly-renamed AI Network for Healthcare will now also be used to create an AI-focused network in cardiology, work that will initially see it partner with Apollo Hospitals, one of India’s largest health systems.

The IT giant has also launched a cloud-based genomics service to provide researchers and clinicians with ‘highly accelerated, cloud-powered genomic processing services’.

That launch, which will use Microsoft’s Azure cloud computing platform, will see it partner with the Tennessee-based St Jude Children’s Research Hospital.

Peter Lee, corporate VP at Microsoft AI + Research, said: “By working side-by-side with the healthcare industry’s most pioneering players, we are bringing Microsoft’s capabilities in ground-breaking research and product development to help healthcare providers, biotech companies and organisations around the world use artificial intelligence (AI) and the cloud to innovate.”

Both initiatives are part of Microsoft’s Healthcare NExT initiative, which aims to accelerate healthcare innovation through artificial intelligence and cloud computing.

Earlier this year Microsoft teamed up with Seattle-based sequencing company Adaptive Biotechnologies to map the genetics of the human immune system, using a combination of machine learning and cloud computing technologies.

The company also recently started working with Shire to look at how technology could be used to accelerate the time it takes to diagnose rare diseases in children.

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