The South Korean government plans to invest 35.7 billion won ($33.4 million) over the next three years to build a homegrown medical artificial intelligence (AI) system that analyzes patients’ medical data to offer personalized diagnostics and treatment plans.

The Ministry of Science, Information and Communication Technology recently held a ceremony in Seoul to formally mark the beginning of efforts to develop the Korean medical AI system dubbed "Dr. Answer," which uses medical big data to guide doctors in their diagnosis and treatment planning, similar to IBM’s Watson.

Dr. Answer will be developed to specifically target eight maladies: breast cancer, colorectal cancer, prostate cancer, cerebrovascular disease, heart disease, epilepsy, dementia and pediatric rare refractory genetic disease.

The ministry plans to carry out this medical artificial intelligence project over the course of three years, with aims to conclude it by 2020. This year, it plans to inject 5 billion won into the project.  

The state-run medical AI project will be led by Seoul’s Asan Medical Center and is to involve 25 local hospitals and medical institutions as well as 19 artificial intelligence tech software developers, including Vuno, JLK Inspection and Kakao Brain. 

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