HHS, VA, DOE Launch COVID-19 Big Data Analytics Collaborative

The Department of Energy (DOE), the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), and the Department of Veterans Affairs have announced a new big data analytics initiative to coordinate and share COVID-19 information.

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The COVID-19 Insights Partnership creates a framework for HHS and VA to utilize DOE’s world-leading high-performance computing (HPC) and artificial intelligence resources to conduct COVID-19 research and analyze health data that otherwise would not be possible.

“The Department of Energy is proud to be a member of the COVID-19 Insights Partnership,” said Secretary of Energy Dan Brouillette. “Our nation’s understanding of COVID-19 has already benefitted greatly from our world-leading high-performance computing and artificial intelligence resources, and we look forward to continuing our coordination across Federal departments and agencies in the fight against this virus.”

Research and analysis conducted by the COVID-19 Insights Partnership will focus on vaccine and therapeutic development and outcomes, virology, and other critical scientific topics to better understand COVID-19. HHS and VA will provide additional updates and information on research projects as they become available.

“Veterans served this country by putting on the uniform and protecting American interests overseas, and now their health data will help us win the fight against COVID-19 here at home,” said VA Secretary Robert Wilkie. “President Trump is marshalling all the resources he has available in the Federal government to fight the virus, and Veterans should be proud of the role they’re playing.”

The US’s fastest supercomputer, Summit, is located at DOE’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory. The advanced tool is accelerating COVID-19 research by running large-scale, complex analyses on a vast amount of health data.

Summit has the ability to analyze massive integrated datasets and divine insights that will help researchers identify and advance potential treatments and enhance outcomes for COVID-19 patients with extraordinary speed.

“This unprecedented data and computing partnership is the latest addition to President Trump’s whole-of-government effort against COVID-19,” said HHS Secretary Alex Azar. “The volume and quality of the data HHS has on COVID-19 has advanced by leaps and bounds in recent months. The Department of Energy’s world-class resources will help us derive new insights from the data we gather to help patients and protect our country.”

The partnership builds on the government’s efforts to use innovative technologies to track and treat COVID-19. DOE recently joined forces with IBM and the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy to launch the COVID-19 High Performance Computing Consortium.

The initiative provides researchers worldwide with HPC resources and expertise from leading industry, federal government, and academia partners to accelerate COVID-19 vaccine and therapeutic research.

“Since the start of COVID-19 pandemic we have been working closely with governments in the US and worldwide to find all available options to put our technology and expertise to work to help organizations be resilient and adapt to the consequences of the pandemic, and to accelerate the process of discovery and enable the scientific and medical community to develop treatments and ultimately a cure,” said  Dario Gil, director of IBM Research.

Additionally, the White House previously issued a call to action for experts to build artificial intelligence tools that can be applied to a COVID-19 dataset.

“Decisive action from America’s science and technology enterprise is critical to prevent, detect, treat, and develop solutions to COVID-19. The White House will continue to be a strong partner in this all hands-on-deck approach,” said Michael Kratsios, US Chief Technology Officer, the White House.

“We thank each institution for voluntarily lending its expertise and innovation to this collaborative effort, and call on the United States research community to put artificial intelligence technologies to work in answering key scientific questions about the novel coronavirus.”