Armed Forces Medical College

Medicine has made progress through small, incremental changes, which happen over decades. But every once in a while, a paradigm shift transforms medicine completely and ushers in a new era. It is still early to say whether the diverse set of tools collectively grouped as 'artificial intelligence'' (AI) will live up to its promise. However, there are early signs that change is already under way. AI based tools are slowly beginning to make their presence felt in diagnosis, prognosis and personalised therapy.

Development of scientific knowledge and staying relevant in this rapidly evolving global scenario requires quality research in the area of artificial intelligence (AI) / machine learning (ML)/ data science. There was a felt need to establish a center for research in the field of AI/ ML/ data science and be the nerve center of research not just in the areas relevant to the armed forces but in wide ranging health related issues being faced by the nation. In the present era of emerging AI (esp in a post Chat GPT world), a department dedicated to the planning and conduct of AI/ ML/ data science based research across the AFMS needed to be established to fulfill these felt needs.

The process started in Jun 2023 when a Chintan Shivir was held in MoD in the presence of the Hon’ble Raksha Mantri. The idea of a computational medicine center was proposed by the DGAFMS in the aforesaid meeting and was vetted by the Hon’ble RM. AFMS officers with expertise in the field of artificial intelligence/ machine learning/ image analysis were sent on deputation to AFMC Pune in the month of July 2023 for a brief period of of 11 days. During these 11 days, the two officers held an intensive brainstorming session with the faculty of AFMC and came up with the vision, mission, objectives (both long and short term), a detailed statement of case with tentative budget, as well as phase-wise list of deliverables. The SOC with budget was forwarded to O/o DGAFMS and the approval for the same arrived on 02 Aug 2023. The name of the center was to be 'Prajna - Armed Forces Center for Computational Medicine' (AFCCM). Following this, infrastructure and manpower requirements and the detailed cost analysis was prepared and sent to O/o DGAFMS. The budget of the first phase was allotted on Sep 2023.

Meanwhile, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) interacted with AFMC leadership and approached Dept of CSE, IIT Kanpur, for technical expertise and guidance. An online video conference was held on between all stakeholders on Sep 2023, followed by a visit to AFMC for on 14 Sep 2023. The two AFMS officers with expertise in this field were posted to AFMC and put in charge of establishing the AFCCM. Procurements commenced with due procedure, and the AFCCM was equipped with state of the art computing power, microscopes, AI modules and programming languages (with guidance from IIT Kanpur), and AI enabled radiological image analysis hardware. With in house AI models built for analaysis of pathological images (i.e. body fluids, Pap smears, blood smears and sputum smears) and bespoke AI models for radiological images (CT/ MRI brain), the AFCCM was up and running in the month of Nov 2023. It was inaugurated by the President on 01 Dec 2023, during the Colour Presentation ceremony at AFMC Pune on 01 Dec 2023.

Data hub for the Armed Forces Medical Services Design and implement AI/ML based research projects in medicine

Assist AFMS researchers in big data analysis.