Alafia’s AI Supercomputer Disrupts How Cancer, HIV, And Other Diseases Are Diagnosed

AI on supercomputers can diagnose cancer, HIV, and other diseases with unprecedented speed and accuracy.

(ALAFIA CEO Cam Buscaron)

AI stirs up a lot of controversy over its potentially positive and negative benefits to humankind. What many would likely not argue is how the technology can rapidly advance healthcare.

The transformative power of AI in the healthcare space is not lost on even the most prestigious medical organizations.

An American Medical Association published January 2024 found that over 1,000 physicians surveyed said AI would be most beneficial for its diagnostic ability (72 percent), work efficiency (69 percent), and clinical outcomes (61 percent).

Powerful diagnostic AI requires powerful AI-capable hardware. Florida-based Alafia is a company that makes a supercomputer, AIVAS, which is designed to support AI that promises to diagnose cancer, HIV, and other diseases with unprecedented speed and accuracy.

AIVAS is a compact form factor AI PC that the company says can perform 1,000 trillion operations per second. The appliance can provide researchers “instant deskside access to powerful, encrypted computing, making it easier to tackle complex challenges in precision medicine and HIV research,” Alafia said in a news release.

MES Computing spoke with Alafia CEO Camilo Buscaron, who previously worked at Amazon Web Services and Nvidia, on how AIVAS can disrupt medical imaging and diagnoses, and if the solution is a fit for midmarket healthcare organizations.

What was the inspiration for Alafia and then AIVAS?

[In] my previous role, we created a technology that became very popular with medical imaging researchers.

I left my enterprise corporate role to figure out how to commercialize the technology.

When we started engaging with health systems, [they] started to think about AI ... and how to apply it.

When we go to an imaging center, they have a $2, $3 million Siemens G healthcare scanner. But then on the other side, they have a Windows 95 box with a CRT monitor.

[The health systems] need just a little better infrastructure... when AI arrives and [they’ll] be able to run it. That’s what led us to build a product.

AIVAS [is] an AI inference appliance.

What are some of the use cases for AIVAS and how does it work with AI software solutions?

We work with existing applications that our potential customers use. We integrate, accelerate workflow.

We [work with] Baptist Health in South Florida. We were already working with a neurology group, they reached out to us. We came in to help them accelerate [their] workflow. They do shoulder reconstruction analysis.

(AIVAS visualization, courtesy, Alafia)

Talk a bit about the hardware that makes up AIVAS.

We’ve taken a processor that was made by Ampere. We have a number of embedded GPUs that provide the GPU computing power. The value proposition of [our] product is [it’s] a complementary solution to a cluster, or in some cases, can replace a cluster. So, the things that our customers, our users, researchers, scientists, doctors are using our computer [for] are typically things that are done in a cluster.

Who is your core market?

We have four markets: bioinformaticians, specialists, pathologists, neurologists. The customer is usually a clinic, a research clinic. They do clinical trials, cohort analysis, a cancer center. We have clinics in California that do depression treatment.

Is AIVAS a suitable solution for midmarket healthcare organizations?

They’re typically the buyer for us, and they understand the product well. There’s a lot of aspects of the product that they like because it’s an enterprise solution based on our background.