Ministry of Education establishes AI Centre of Excellence for Healthcare at IISc
December 13, 2025 | Saturday | News
In line with the Government of India's vision of "Make AI in India and Make AI Work for India," the Ministry of Education has set up four AI Centres of Excellence across premier academic institutions. As part of this initiative, the Translational AI for Networked Universal Healthcare (TANUH) Foundation has been established at IISc Bengaluru as the dedicated AI-CoE for Healthcare. The mandate is straightforward: move clinically validated AI from lab pilots to real clinical settings at scale.
What TANUH is building
TANUH is a Section 8 not-for-profit focused on AI solutions for non-communicable diseases (NCDs) at the point of care. It operates as a multidisciplinary hub connecting clinicians, data scientists, and AI researchers. Nine IISc faculty members anchor programs spanning digital health, machine learning, and public health.
Clinical scope and use cases
The centre's goal is to develop tools for early detection, risk prediction, monitoring, and personalised care-built for frontline use and hospital workflows, with human decision-making preserved by design.
- Oral cancer and oral potentially malignant disorders (OPMD)
- Breast cancer
- Retinal diseases
- Diabetes
- Mental health
Built for the point of care, guided by responsible AI
Solutions are intended for direct use where patients are treated, not just for retrospective analysis. They follow responsible AI practices and are co-created and tested with clinicians and researchers at leading national institutions such as AIIMS New Delhi. Human oversight remains central to ensure safety and clinical effectiveness.
From research to population scale
TANUH's core team-executives, engineers, programme managers, and research staff with industry experience-focuses on translation, integration, and deployment. The objective is practical: interoperable tools that fit existing care pathways and can scale across states and health systems.
First release: Aarogya Aarohan
TANUH has launched Aarogya Aarohan, an application from the Oral Cancer Screening team developed with AIIMS, ARTPARK, Biocon Foundation, BITS Pilani (Goa), KLE Society's Institute of Dental Sciences, Triveous, and other partners, with guidance from the Oral Cancer Task Force. It is a white-light, mobile phone-based, AI-assisted tool for early detection of OPMD and oral cancers at the point of care.
Key collaborators
- AIIMS, New Delhi
- ARTPARK
- Biocon Foundation
- BITS Pilani (Goa)
- KLE Society's Institute of Dental Sciences
- Triveous and other clinical and industrial partners
Why this matters for healthcare teams
For public health programs, this enables frontline screening and triage with affordable devices and clinically grounded AI. For clinicians, it offers decision support that fits into existing workflows while keeping clinical judgement in the loop. For researchers and health systems, it provides a pathway to validate, iterate, and deploy at scale across high-burden NCDs.
Next steps
Expect expansion into diabetic care, retinal screening, mental health assessment tools, and breast cancer pathways-each co-developed with clinical partners and evaluated in real settings. The focus remains the same: measurable outcomes, safety, and adoption at the point of care.
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