Gulf Nations Are in Pole Position for the Health AI Race Here’s Why the UK Has Fallen Behind

“AI is no longer an option but a core competency in novel drug development. Through our collaboration with PhynX Labs, we will advance the application of AI throughout the entire process of novel drug development,” said SK Biopharmaceuticals CEO Lee Dong-hoon. In their study, which findings have been published in the journal Cell Host & Microbe, the AI system demonstrated 98% accuracy in detecting existing cavities and 93% accuracy in predicting cavities two months before they became clinically apparent. The Media Online is the definitive online point of reference for South Africa’s media industry offering relevant, focused and topical news on the media sector. We deliver up-to-date industry insights, guest columns, case studies, content from local and global contributors, news, views and interviews on a daily basis as well as providing an online home for The Media magazine’s content, which is posted on a monthly basis.

Agam Shah is a journalist with two decades of experience writing about enterprise technology. He previously was a technology reporter at The Wall Street Journal, S&P Global, The Register and the former IDG News Service. The feature represents Meta’s earliest use of confidential computing —the company calls it Private Processing — to secure user information. Meta has struggled for decades with protecting user data, but is now using confidential computing to regain user trust. Another place confidential computing has come into play involves WhatsApp, which recently got genAI tools that can generate quick summaries of a user’s latest messages. GPUs combine high performance with robust security, which makes them ideal for regulated industries such as healthcare, finance, and government, said Steven Dickens, principal analyst at Hyperframe Research.

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• Meta has struggled for decades with protecting user data, but is now using confidential computing to regain user trust.
• While these three frameworks offer helpful information, they still cannot make a final decision about whether an AI system is safe or effective.
• He adds that it remains to be seen whether the AI system would significantly reduce costs in practice.
• We deliver up-to-date industry insights, guest columns, case studies, content from local and global contributors, news, views and interviews on a daily basis as well as providing an online home for The Media magazine’s content, which is posted on a monthly basis.
• Questions such as whether health data is encrypted, if it abides by HIPAA regulations, and whether it is shared with third-party companies are important to consider when using chatbots for mental health care.

The company responded by issuing a patch and announcing further safeguards, but the incident raised concerns about the model’s readiness for sensitive government deployment. Google Public Sector secured a contract to supply high-performance computing infrastructure – especially its tensor processing units – and its secure, air-gapped cloud environments tailored for classified data handling at the highest levels. XAI was the final recipient, launching a defense-focused offering dubbed “Grok for Government,” which includes its latest Grok 4 model. Qatar’s position demonstrates that the UK too can create a robust regulatory environment for AI to thrive – while also protecting the privacy of its patients. Healthtech startups are being stifled by red tape, rising compliance costs, and outdated National Health Service (NHS) infrastructure.

More In:Becker’s Hospital Review

The countries that get the infrastructure and incentives right today will reap the rewards tomorrow. Every hospital uses a different electronic health record system and has its own set of bureaucratic hurdles. Even basic tasks like integrating AI decision making software can turn into multi-year slogs.

A few days before the 2025 summit, the Annals of Surgery medical journal published a Mayo Clinic team’s study of an AI system built to identify surgical site infections based off a patient’s own photo of their post-op incision. “We’re building AI into the fabric of Mayo,” said Dr. Matthew Callstrom, Mayo Clinic’s radiology department chair and medical director for the Generative Artificial Intelligence program. “We’re going through the teams that are doing the work, both in our clinical departments to our research groups, so that we can build a sustainable model and build new capabilities going forward.” If you have any questions or concerns about the products and services offered on linked third party websites, please contact the third party directly. CPU-based technologies are also susceptible to side-channel attacks, raising concerns about their reliability, Hyperframe’s Dickens said. “In such an environment, the reliability of confidential computing and attestation becomes very fragile,” said Alex Matrosov, a security expert and CEO of Binarly.

With two-thirds of Xsolis’ 500+ hospital clients now sharing an AI platform with their networked health plans, its AI-driven Dragonfly platform is helping to bridge that gap. Over the next several months, OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, and xAI will each have to prove that their frontier AI tools can handle the complexity, scale, and sensitivity of national security work. Expect detailed performance metrics, pilot evaluations tied to mission impact, and potential contract extensions. As national security challenges grow more complex, from cyber operations to hybrid warfare, defense officials see AI not merely as a support tool, but as a force multiplier capable of reshaping strategic planning and real-time operations. XAI’s problems have only intensified calls from watchdogs and legislators for stronger vetting protocols, clear performance metrics, and transparency in AI decision-making.

“Nvidia’s GPU hosting the model protects the IP of Google Gemini when it’s running in the data center, and also protects the enterprise IP used in these models,” said Justin Boitano, vice president of Enterprise AI products at Nvidia. It recently entered into a partnership with California-based PhynX Lab, a startup backed by its parent, SK Group, to jointly develop a customised solution to automate early tasks in novel drug development using the genAI platform Cheiron. Also, a study published by technology company Apple in June 2025 sets out generative AI’s “complete accuracy collapse” when faced with complex reasoning tasks, even when provided with explicit solution algorithms.

The tool empowers doctors by boosting clinical productivity, reducing medical errors and burnout, and restoring the human connection in medicine. Prior to founding Rhazes AI, Dr Al-Fagih practiced full-time as a medical doctor in the NHS, and was a voluntary first responder and first aid trainer on humanitarian missions during the Syrian conflict. He has published research in leading journals on applying emerging technologies to healthcare, most recently in the Emergency Medical Journal. “Together, we are not just piloting a technology, but reimagining the way care is delivered – building a new clinical reality where intelligent, human-aligned systems work hand-in-hand with caregivers to elevate the standard of care worldwide.” “Partnering with Sheba is an important step forward in realizing our mission to deliver safe, effective, high-quality generative AI healthcare at scale,” said Munjal Shah, Co-Founder and CEO of Hippocratic AI.

Callstrom presented a handful of the 97 AI algorithms that are currently in use at Mayo Clinic. One, called RecordTime, lets clinicians quickly pull information from a patient’s non-Mayo medical records. Another is Abridge, which listens to visits between patients and their doctors and nurses and turns them into written clinical notes. Despite the increasing use of confidential computing, there remain concerns about its arrival in cloud environments, where CPUs check system-level attestation and GPUs authenticate data. For one, data travels to GPUs only through CPUs, and any vulnerability will leave a giant gap for hackers to steal data. This is the “first use case where Meta applies Private Processing, we expect there will be others where the same or similar infrastructure might be beneficial in processing user requests,” the company said in a post detailing the technology.