Cleveland Clinic and PathAIa Boston-based artificial intelligence company, are teaming up to build what they call a “digital pathology infrastructure” and advance the use of AI-powered pathology algorithms in research and clinical care.

The health system and the company on Thursday, March 10, announced a five-year strategic collaboration that they said “will focus on leveraging PathAI’s quantitative pathology algorithms both to conduct new translational research and for use as clinical diagnostics in multiple disease areas.” They said the effort “combines PathAI’s AI-based platforms with Cleveland Clinic’s clinical expertise and multi-modal data to unlock a broad implementation of next-generation pathology diagnostics.”

Dr. Brian Rubin, chair of the Pathology & Laboratory Medicine Institute at the Clinic, said in a statement, “Our commitment is to provide the best possible care for our patients, and it is increasingly clear that AI-powered pathology can radically enhance diagnostic accuracy and treatment selection.”

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The Clinic and PathAI said the collaboration “will enable the digitization of hundreds of thousands of pathology specimens, creating millions of whole slide images across multiple disease areas.” It also will “provide educational opportunities for Cleveland Clinic faculty and trainees, with the goal of enabling the development and usage of AI-powered pathology diagnostics to improve patient care,” according to the release.

The Clinic said it will become an equity holder in PathAI as part of the agreement. Terms of that stake were not disclosed.

Dr. Andy Beck, CEO of PathAI, said in a statement, “We see an incredible opportunity to accelerate innovation in precision pathology and to use our strengths to bridge communities in the healthcare ecosystem including patients, biopharma and academic research.”

This story first appeared in our sister publication, Crain’s Cleveland Business.