UK & US AI Healthcare Breakthroughs Shown in San Francisco

Top healthcare and technology experts from the UK and US met in San Francisco to explore the future of AI in medicine. The event featured speakers from Imperial College London, Stanford University, the University of California San Francisco (UCSF), and the global pharmaceutical company Sanofi. It focused on new AI tools that can support doctors, improve care, and strengthen international cooperation.

Imperial introduced two major projects. The first is Nightingale AI, a next-generation AI model trained on healthcare data from the UK. The second is the AI Clinician, designed to help doctors treat patients in intensive care units. Both tools use large amounts of health data and aim to improve decision-making in hospitals.

San Francisco, known for its tech innovation, hosted the event to help build new links between US startups and UK health researchers. A group of Imperial-led startups also joined the event to meet with local investors and partners. The event was organized by Imperial Global USA, Imperial Enterprise, and the AI for Healthcare Centres (AI4Health).

Speakers explained how AI is being used in drug development, disease research, and hospital care. One example was a model built using electronic health records to predict the risk of Alzheimer’s disease. Others showed how AI can help doctors spend more time with patients by taking automatic notes during visits.

However, experts said that while thousands of AI tools have been approved in the US, very few are actually used in hospitals. Many tools are designed to copy what humans do instead of solving problems in new ways. Experts agreed that AI should be developed to do things that people cannot do easily, like using large amounts of health data to find patterns and prevent disease.

The UK’s National Health Service (NHS) was highlighted as a unique strength. It serves over 65 million people and keeps complete health records under one system. This allows researchers to track a person’s entire healthcare journey and build better AI models. These large and linked datasets help train AI tools like Nightingale AI, which can read X-rays, ECGs, genetic data, doctor’s notes, wearable device data, and more.

Imperial has worked with several US partners, including a collaboration with Heartflow to improve heart condition diagnosis and a partnership with Children’s Hospital of Orange County to expand the AI Clinician model for children. These projects show real-world uses of AI in healthcare.

Several UK startups also presented their innovations. These included Nanograb, which speeds up drug discovery; Steward.ai, which helps doctors make better choices; Surgery AI, which improves hospital scheduling; Beyond Blood Diagnostics, which helps people manage chronic illness; and Ethomix, which uses AI to track health signs.

Imperial also supports its students, staff, and alumni through its Enterprise Lab. This program helps people turn new ideas into real medical tools and businesses.

The event showed that AI can bring major improvements to healthcare if countries work together. With strong data systems in the UK and world-class innovation in the US, new medical AI tools could improve care for millions of people worldwide.