President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Tuesday directing $50 million toward artificial intelligence-powered research for pediatric cancer.
The order aims to invest in “AI-enabled science,” and directs the Make America Healthy Again Commission to work with the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) to apply AI to the Childhood Cancer Data Initiative (CCDI).
President Trump established the CCDI in 2019, during his first administration. In establishing that initiative, the president had dedicated $50 million per year to support childhood cancer research.
Following his new order, that number has now doubled. The Department of Health and Human Services announced on Tuesday that the CCDI’s budget will rise from $50 million to $100 million.
“For years, we’ve been amassing data about childhood cancer, but until now, we’ve been unable to fully exploit this trove of information and apply it to practical medicine using cutting-edge AI,” said President Trump while speaking at the Oval Office.
“We will empower scientists and researchers to discover new treatments, cures, and prevention strategies. AI can also make groundbreaking trials and therapies, and just gonna be so accessible to everybody,” he continued.
The White House order said that it will initially focus on identifying where AI-driven solutions can be accelerated and will make data platforms and tools available as part of the Childhood Cancer Data Initiative.
To do that, the agency said it will consolidate data from siloed sources for AI-ready analysis and select participants for clinical trials, use AI to perform data analysis on complex biological systems by using predictive modeling of patient response and disease progression, and incorporate multimodal data and AI approaches to maximize information from clinical trials.
Under the order, improvements will also be made to data interoperability by improving electronic health record and claims data to inform research and clinical trial design while maintaining data privacy standards.
While also speaking at the Oval Office, OSTP Director Michael Kratsios thanked President Trump and said that the order helps maintain the United States’ “global leadership in artificial intelligence across models, data sets, applications.”
“We’re leading in AI, we’re leading China by a lot. We’re leading everybody by a lot,” said President Trump when announcing the funding.
While the administration has touted the increased funding, it also proposed a 40% funding cut to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) this summer, which led to many experts expressing alarm that those cuts could set the country back in critical cancer-related research.
So far, Congress hasn’t approved those cuts and has instead opted for largely maintaining the NIH’s funding or giving it a much softer reduction in funding.