Quanta Research Institute (QRI, 廣達研究院), Quanta Computer Inc’s (廣達) research and development unit for futuristic technologies, ended its partnership with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) last year after 10 years of collaboration, the Taiwanese company confirmed recently.
“QRI and MIT completed their collaboration last year,” a Quanta official said by telephone.
QRI was established in 2004 with a vision to identify and accelerate “next-generation” technologies that could make a significant difference to human life, such as cloud computing and healthcare technologies, Quanta said.
QRI had been the sole strategic partner of MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) between 2004 and last year, with nearly 10 percent of all CSAIL members involved in the collaboration. Quanta provided about US$45 million in finance over the past decade.
A number of QRI and CSAIL- developed technologies have resulted in research prototypes in secure and fast hardware for data centers, natural interactions using speech for health-related applications and motion magnification for medical applications, the laboratory said.
A Quanta official said QRI has continued to work with other academic and medical institutes on various research projects since finalizing its collaboration with CSAIL.
One of QRI’s current focuses is on the QOCA healthcare platform it codeveloped with CSAIL, the official said.
The platform includes home tele-health solutions that offer remote access to care, and bedside solutions to provide real-time voice and video communication, information and entertainment to patients and medical staff, Quanta said.
QRI is in talks with domestic and international healthcare institutions, hospitals and clinics to trial its products, the official said.
QRI’s remote access healthcare technologies could assist during the “golden hour” during a medical emergency, the official said.
However, it would take time and “tens of thousands” of trials to ensure products exceed a 95 percent rating, and then time to commercialize the products, the official said.
It is expected to take years before the healthcare segment contributes even 1 percent to Quanta’s total revenues, given the firm’s annual revenue base is about NT$1 trillion (US$31.79 billion), the official added.
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