WESTBOROUGH, Mass. – The Healey-Driscoll Administration has awarded $555,000 to support the establishment of the Health AI Assurance Laboratory located at UMass Chan Medical School and run in partnership with Bedford-based MITRE Corporation. The new lab will be supported through the Technology & Innovation Ecosystem Awards Program managed by the Innovation Institute at the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative, along with $137,000 in matching investments from the private sector.
The lab will use cutting-edge tools to develop infrastructure and processes for the evaluation of AI-enabled solutions in the health domain. Developers of AI-enabled solutions will bring their products to the Health AI Assurance Laboratory for assessment of its features and expected uses, helping to foster trustworthy and responsible use. The lab will contribute to emerging national standards for the evaluation of digital health technologies which can support commercial applications for healthcare innovators in the region. The funds will also support the construction of physical spaces that will allow for collaboration, workforce training, and R&D focused on security infrastructure to ensure the safety of health AI products before they’re put into general use.
“We are committed to researching and developing health AI tools to strengthen our state’s leadership in healthcare,” said Secretary Yvonne Hao, Executive Office of Economic Development, co-chair of the state’s AI Strategic Taskforce. “The new Health AI Assurance Laboratory is an incredible opportunity to grow the AI ecosystem by building strategic partnerships and providing career opportunities to students in data analysis, informatics, and machine learning. Through the leadership of the world-class researchers at UMass Chan and MITRE, this new lab will help us build a stronger health AI industry in Massachusetts and accelerate responsible innovation for the global marketplace.”
“Given the immense potential of AI to transform everyday life, we want to be mindful of its overall impact.” said Patrick Larkin, director, Innovation Institute at MassTech and a member of the AI Strategic Taskforce. “That means supporting investments that ultimately provide startups and established companies with the necessary tools, methods, processes, infrastructure, and a simulated real-world environment to develop and refine their AI-driven solutions in a controlled setting. This will help promote safety and efficacy, while facilitating collaboration, data sharing, and the development of cutting-edge technologies that will further position Massachusetts as a global leader in health AI. We want to congratulate UMass Chan, MITRE, and their partners in building a strong foundation for future, emerging industries across the state.”
The Innovation Institute’s grant to support the Health AI Assurance Laboratory, aims to create workforce development opportunities for high school, undergraduate, and post-graduate (master’s, M.D., and Ph.D.) students looking to break into AI. With hands-on experience, these students will be able to hone specific skills for a future career in the field.
“UMass Chan, a national leader in research, continues to make great strides to change the course of history of disease.” said Michael F. Collins, chancellor of UMass Chan Medical School. “Together with MITRE and with support from the Innovation Institute at MassTech, current and future health care professionals will be able to create and guide AI technology to fulfill its promise of better, more efficient and more equitable patient care across our communities.”
“With support from MassTech, we’re excited to partner with the UMass Chan Medical School to launch the Health AI Assurance Lab,” said Doug Robbins, vice president at MITRE. “Having just opened MITRE’s national AI Assurance & Discovery Lab in northern Virginia, we look forward to sharing our AI assurance resources and expertise with the UMass team. Connecting both labs will be the very first step in creating what we envision as a national network of AI assurance labs, and we celebrate the Bay State for being at the forefront of that movement.”
The Tech and Innovation Ecosystem program seeks to strengthen the technology and innovation ecosystems that exist in regions across Massachusetts through grants for projects or initiatives that contribute to a competitive advantage for existing and emerging industry clusters across the state. The program aims to improve conditions overall for job growth, drive business expansion and new business formation, and impact other indicators of growth in the innovation economy such as capital formation, increased export products and services, improved labor pools, and increased wages.
The Tech and Innovation grant program has invested over $12 million in seven projects located across the state, focused on diverse sectors such as autonomous vehicles, blockchain, blue tech, fintech, and robotics. Organizations interested in applying for the program can learn more on the MassTech website.
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About the Innovation Institute at the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative
The Massachusetts Technology Collaborative (MassTech) is a quasi-public economic development agency that strengthens the competitiveness of the tech and innovation economy by driving strategic investments, partnerships, and insights that harness the talent of Massachusetts. The Innovation Institute is the division of MassTech that advances its core mission of growing innovation and technology clusters across the Commonwealth. Created in 2003, the Innovation Institute supports the economy in the following four ways:
- Conducts research and analysis that improves the state’s understandings of unmet needs and opportunities in the innovation economy;
- Serves as convener and key strategic broker on the landscape;
- Manages high-value projects on behalf of the Commonwealth; and
- Makes strategic investments in support of innovation-based economic development.
For more information, visit https://innovation.masstech.org.
About UMass Chan Medical School
UMass Chan Medical School, one of five campuses of the University of Massachusetts system, comprises the T.H. Chan School of Medicine, the Morningside Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, the Tan Chingfen Graduate School of Nursing, ForHealth Consulting of UMass Chan Medical School and MassBiologics. At UMass Chan, we are advancing together to improve
the health and wellness of our diverse communities throughout Massachusetts and across the world by leading and innovating in education, research, health care delivery and public service. UMass Chan is perennially ranked in the top 10 percent of medical schools for primary care education and among the top 50 medical schools in the nation for biomedical research funding.
Learn more at umassmed.edu.
About MITRE
MITRE’s mission-driven teams are dedicated to solving problems for a safer world. Through our public-private partnerships and federally funded R&D centers, we work across government and in partnership with industry to tackle challenges to the safety, stability, and well-being of our nation. Learn more at mitre.org.