Johannesburg - A global artificial intelligence (AI) company could hold the key to saving millions of lives during the Covid-19 pandemic.
InstaDeep, which was founded in North Africa and has offices around the world including South Africa, teamed up with BioNTech, the German biotech company behind the Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine, to develop an AI tool that detects high-risk Sars-CoV-2 variants based on their genetic code.
The AI system has already identified more than 90% of variants of concern, on average two months before their designation by the World Health Organization (WHO).
It has detected the highly transmissible Omicron on the day its sequence became available among more than 70 000 novel variants discovered in October and November 2021.
More than 10 000 novel variant sequences are being discovered every week and for the first time, high-risk variants can now be detected on the spot, potentially saving months of precious time.
Karim Beguir, CEO and co-founder of InstaDeep, said the new AI system can go a long way in helping save people's lives.
“The Covid-19 Early Warning System co-developed by BioNTech and InstaDeep uses AI to monitor the viral sequences of new Sars-CoV-2 variants as they’re shared globally, analysing their structure in real-time to flag high-risk variants,” Beguir told the Saturday Star this week.
“The system evaluates how well a variant can evade the immune system and its potential for transmissibility and has identified more than 90% of WHO designated variants on average two months in advance. It flagged Omicron on the same day its sequence was made available,” Beguir said.
“At the moment, we have more than 12 000 new variants emerging every week, as opposed to a few hundred per week a year and a half ago. Human experts simply cannot cope with complex data at this scale, so together with BioNTech we’ve created an AI system that can help sort what would be most transmissible and what would be immune escaping.”
Beguir said that for the first time high-risk variants can now be detected on the spot, potentially saving months of precious time.
“This could potentially accelerate better decision-making by health authorities to put in place various measures to reduce transmission, prepare hospitals and infrastructure for surges in cases and improve the effectiveness of vaccines and diagnostic tests.
“Catching variants of concern very early is key in saving many lives and in reducing the related social and economic costs.”
He believes the groundbreaking technology will prove to be helpful for every country in the world, including South Africa.
“Give any new tool to South Africans and you’d better be ready to see them use it for some next-level problem-solving – particularly when it comes to health and medicine.”
Beguir added that the new system is game-changing and that AI holds the key to finding a way out of the pandemic.
“We need to find a way out of this pandemic and AI can help,” said Beguir.
“The bigger story behind the early warning system, however, is AI itself and it is absolutely game-changing. It presents a huge opportunity for Africa. The fact is that today, we at InstaDeep, a company founded in Africa, are working on very interesting technologies like the one we’re talking about. We began in North Africa with two laptops and $2 000 (R30 700) and lots of enthusiasm. I hope our story sends a positive message to the young talent in South Africa and across the continent that they can be a part of the AI revolution and help shape the future of AI,” Beguir said.
“This is not something we can just leave to be designed by Silicon Valley or Asia. That’s why we’re proud to be on the steering committee for Deep Learning Indaba, an organisation dedicated to strengthening Machine Learning in Africa, which is helping people acquire the skills they need to work with this game-changing technology. It was at the Indaba in South Africa that we first met Google, one of our new investors, and started collaborating together.”
He added that he was also very fortunate to have his own dynamic team of researchers based in Cape Town.
“Every day we get to see what the talent here can do. Our team in South Africa is working on solving problems in biology, transportation, managing scarce resources and more. And I’d love to add: We’re hiring.”
Judging by the results they have seen recently on the groundbreaking new early warning system, Beguir said thousands of new Covid variants could be expected in the upcoming months.
“To illustrate the numbers, in September 2020 on average around 300 new variants were appearing each week. Less than a year later in August 2021, there were 7 000 new variants a week and only three months later in October, there were 10 000 a week. Now, more than 12 000 new variants are being detected every week.
“As the growth rate continues to increase, it’s humanly impossible to evaluate all the new variants that are emerging without a new tool. Most mutations are likely to be harmless, but a small proportion of changes to its genetic material can lead to more contagious or more immune escaping variants such as Alpha, Delta and Omicron.”
He said AI can help solve many real problems that the world faces, including food security in Africa.
“We regularly publish AI research and we’re always interested in how new ideas can be translated into real-world applications. We have a focus on real-world impact. Part of our mission is to build AI that benefits everyone. We really focus a lot on the positive impact of our work, and try to try to select topics where we believe we can make a contribution.”
Another good example of this, Beguir said, is the joint research with Google to help improve food security in Africa.
Locusts are also growing problem in Africa and in the developing world.
“You can have swarms that can be as big as 200 billion insects say three times the size of Manhattan, for example. In one day, they could eat the food supply of millions of people. Growing up as a boy in Tataouine in Tunisia, I saw the damage they create.
“The AI system helps better identify locust breeding grounds to warn farmers of where swarms could form, looking across the continent from Western Sahara to the Horn of Africa. That is work we’re quite excited about because it is using AI technology to tackle real issues.”
Beguir said they are thrilled by the new early warning system and hopes it proves to be life-changing during the pandemic.
“We’re very excited by the progress, but this is just one of many projects we’re working on to tackle tough, real-world problems.”
Meanwhile, InstaDeep has also managed to raise $100 million, and will use this funding to advance its high-performance computing infrastructure optimised for decision-making AI, continue to hire elite talent – particularly in South Africa – and accelerate the launch of disruptive AI products across multiple industries – including biotech, logistics, transportation, and electronics manufacturing.
Using AI to tackle the world’s toughest problems is in InstaDeep’s DNA and the company's South African team is busy working on new ways to advance AI so it can help solve challenges in areas such as health, transportation, and resource management.
“This is a powerful and potentially game-changing technology given the number of important and highly impactful problems that it could help us solve,” said Arnu Pretorius, the AI research scientist who leads InstaDeep’s South African team.