An Edinburgh-based company, Cloudsoft that specialises in applications, automation and the cloud has developed an artificial intelligence (AI) -based software that can detect Covid-19 from the sound of people coughing, according to media reports. The company has also collaborated with the UK government to bring an innovative AI-based Covid-19 test and Cloudsoft will play a crucial role,in helping the UK government implement this for accurately detecting the virus using voice data.
Named ‘Cough-in-a-box’, the application uses AI model to correctly depict 98.5% of positive cases including completely asymptomatic ones. Last year in October, researchers at MIT revealed that they had successfully detected cases of Covid-19 in asymptomatic people by hearing them cough.
This discovery opened doors for identifying potential Covid-19 cases through an individual’s mobile phone without the need for immediate testing.
Ross Gray, CEO, Cloudsoft told the media, “This is transformational technology for the greater human good and we’re proud to at the forefront of technological innovation to contribute to overcoming Covid-19. With so many applications in the real world, this technology could be a game-changer for so many sectors – including travel and hospitality, providing the current trials continue to show the same level of effectiveness as the initial MIT study.”
Since December 2020, engineers at Cloudsoft have been working with specialists from Fujitsu, Formwize, and the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) to convert their applications to cloud. With the help of this, the UK government can scale up the application for 40,000 further trials and can also meet the strict demands of security and data processing.
Additionally, it also uses Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft Azure cloud platform and benefits from increased reliability and resilience, which are primary requirements for the government to expand its trials.