Advances in machine learning offer new opportunities in the healthcare sector. Medical establishments are teaming up with tech giants to harness big data for developing digital healthcare services.

Better healthcare through collaboration between medicine and tech.

Toshiba Corporation has started working with the Johns Hopkins University (JHU) School of Medicine to develop artificial intelligence (AI) technology which helps predict the risk of heart disease.

The company intends to combine its machine learning technology with expertise of the medical team at JHU, the joint collaboration forecast to last three years.

Lifestyle choices such as high-cholesterol diet and smoking rather than genetic factors are said to be the causes of heart disease, and the risk of becoming ill increases with age-related changes in circulatory system (heart and blood vessels).

The machine learning technology will analyze large amounts of anonymous health data accumulated over many years to make heart disease prediction possible taking such factors as lifestyle choices into consideration.

AI-powered healthcare is viewed as a solution to rising healthcare costs in the age of longevity and the global market is estimated to grow to nearly $70 billion by 2025.