Japan’s Leading-edge Semiconductor Technology Center, known as LSTC, said on Tuesday it will help build an artificial intelligence system for processing medical images. The group is working with Hokkaido University and Fujifilm on the project.
The partners shared the plan at a news conference in Tokyo. They said the goal is to deliver the real-time image processing that medical sites require.
The project also aims to lower the amount of power the system uses. The partners want to reach high speeds while using less energy.
How the Work Will Be Divided
Each member of the project has a separate role. Fujifilm will mainly develop the AI used for imaging tests and ultrasound exams at medical institutions.
Hokkaido University will handle AI design and evaluation. Its work will focus on how the AI is built and how well it performs.
The LSTC will design the semiconductors the system needs. Chipmaker Rapidus is one of the LSTC’s members.
The plan pairs a medical imaging company with a research university and a chip design group. Each will cover one part of the system.
Rapidus Chips at the Core
The system is expected to run on semiconductors with a circuit line width of 2 nanometers. These chips would come from Rapidus.
Rapidus aims to mass-produce these cutting-edge chips. A smaller circuit line width allows more circuits to fit on a chip.
According to the project members, these chips would allow image processing more than five times faster than conventional graphics processing units, or GPUs.
The chips would also offer more than 10 times the energy efficiency of those GPUs. This links directly to the project’s goal of reducing power use.
The partners said real-time processing is needed at medical sites. Imaging tests and ultrasound exams are the main focus of the AI work.
Tetsuro Higashi chairs both the LSTC and Rapidus. He appeared at Tuesday’s news conference in Tokyo alongside other project leaders.
The announcement did not include a timeline for when the system might be ready. It also did not include cost figures for the project.
Higashi described the purpose of the effort at the event. “We want to make use of cutting-edge semiconductors to develop technologies that are helpful at medical sites,” he said.
