Artificial intelligence (AI) firm DarwinAI has received $750,000 from Lockheed Martin to support the development of its COVID-Net initiative, which aims to utilize AI to diagnose COVID-19 on chest radiographs.
This investment between Canada-based company and Lockheed grew from the Industrial Technological Benefits policy, which requires companies that are awarded defense procurement contracts to undertake business in Canada that is equal to the value of the contract.
The funds will be used to operationalize the project to make it accessible to clinicians and healthcare professionals, according to the company. These steps will include creating a front-end user interface to simplify ease-of-use as well as integrating the software with PACS, DarwinAI said.
The firm anticipates that the first iteration of the user interface will be used in numerous hospitals by the end of the year.
![A normal mammogram confirmed by three-year radiologic follow-up illustrates reader-marked regions of interest (ROIs) during (A) unaided (round 1) and (B) artificial intelligence (AI)–assisted (round 2) reading. Each colored dot represents an ROI for recall by a human reader. Readers could mark more than one ROI per case, represented by multiple dots of the same color. During AI-assisted reading, the AI system displayed three visible prompts: two with suspicion of malignancy scores of 35% (left mediolateral oblique [L MLO] and craniocaudal [L CC]) and one with a suspicion of malignancy score of 10% (right craniocaudal [R CC]), shown as polygonal overlays. Without AI, six of 10 readers (60%) marked a false-positive ROI. With AI assistance, this fell to two of 10 (20%). R MLO = right mediolateral oblique.](https://img.auntminnie.com/mindful/smg/workspaces/default/uploads/2026/07/2026-07-14-radiology-mammogram-ai-auto-bias.H0bYO8QlWs.jpg?auto=format%2Ccompress&dpr=2&fit=crop&h=167&q=70&w=250)
