Xilinx and Spline.AI develop X-ray classification deep-learning model

The collaboratively developed solution uses an open-source model, which runs on a Python programming platform on a Xilinx Zynq UltraScale+ MPSoC device, meaning it can be adapted by researchers to suit different application specific requirements.

Medical diagnostic, clinical equipment makers and healthcare service providers can use the open-source design to rapidly develop and deploy trained models for many clinical and radiological applications in a mobile, portable or point-of-care edge device with the option to scale using the cloud.

“AI is one of the fastest growing and high demand application areas of healthcare, so we’re excited to share this adaptable, open-source solution with the industry,” said Kapil Shankar, Vice President of Marketing and Business Development, Core Markets Group at Xilinx. “The cost-effective solution offers low latency, power efficiency, and scalability. Plus, as the model can be easily adapted to similar clinical and diagnostic applications, medical equipment makers and healthcare providers are empowered to swiftly develop future clinical and radiological applications using the reference design kit.”

The solution’s artificial intelligence (AI) model is trained using Amazon SageMaker and is deployed from cloud to edge using AWS IoT Greengrass, enabling remote machine learning (ML) model updates, geographically distributed inference, and the ability to scale across remote networks and large geographies.

“We are delighted to support Xilinx design a solution for healthcare customers who are in need of ways to rapidly develop trained models for clinical and radiological applications,” said Dirk Didascalou, Vice President of IoT at Amazon Web Services. “Amazon SageMaker enabled Xilinx and Spline.AI to develop a high-quality solution that can support highly accurate clinical diagnostics using low cost medical appliances. The integration of AWS IoT Greengrass enables physicians to easily upload X-ray images to the cloud without the need of a physical medical device, enabling physicians to extend the delivery care to more remote locations.”

Syed Hussain, CTO at Spline.AI said: “Xilinx Zynq UltraScale+ MPSoCs are Edge devices ideally suited for scalable deployment of high-performance deep-learning models in a clinical setting, such as the new COVID-XS model that we worked to train and develop for this collaborative effort.”

The solution has been used for a pneumonia and COVID-19 detection system, with incredibly high levels of accuracy and low inference latency. The development team leveraged over 30,000 curated and labelled pneumonia images and 500 COVID-19 images to train the deep learning models. This data is made available for public research by healthcare and research institutes such as National Institute of Health (NIH), Stanford University, and MIT, as well as other hospitals and clinics around the world.