Leveraging AI To Accelerate Precision Health For Longevity

People over 50 are the fastest growing demographic group worldwide. This creates both opportunities and challenges for the global economy and healthcare systems. The Longevity Industry, which provides products and services for those aged over 50 is becoming a multi-trillion-dollar industry. There are currently 260 companies, 250 investors, 10 non-profits, and 10 research labs in the Longevity Industry in the UK alone. In the next decade, Longevity policies enacted by governments, and changes in the financial industry will transform society. Achieving small but practical results in Longevity distributed at scale will have enormous and multiplicative effects on society. Extending the functional lifespan of humans by just one year will decrease suffering for tens of millions of people and will improve the quality of life for billions of people.

Despite having more potential to increase healthy Longevity in the short term than any other sector, AI for Longevity is an underrepresented sector in the Longevity Industry. AI holds enormous potential to rapidly accelerate the implementation of longevity research and development.

Currently there are only three centers in the world actively working to apply AI to precision health for healthy Longevity. These include the US based Buck Institute for Research on Aging, US based Y Combinator, and the US based AI Precision Health Institute (AI-PHI) at the University of Hawaii Cancer Center. Only the AI-PHI has actually succeeded in practice. AI holds enormous potential to rapidly accelerate the implementation of Longevity research and development. Longevity companies that prove capable of achieving tangible results may become the next Googles, and investment firms that invest in those companies may become the SoftBanks and Vision Funds of tomorrow.

This article was published in Forbes on November 24, 2019.

Copyright © 2019 Margaretta Colangelo. All Rights Reserved.

This article was written by Margaretta Colangelo. Margaretta is a leading AI analyst who tracks significant milestones in AI in healthcare. She consults with AI healthcare companies and writes about some of the companies she consults with. Margaretta serves on the advisory board of the AI Precision Health Institute at the University of Hawaiʻi Cancer Center @realmargaretta