The cunning plan is to speed scientific research and ensuring access to online learning for students.
Included in Intel's effort is an additional innovation fund for requests where access to Intel expertise and resources can have immediate impact. This is in addition to prior announcements of $10 million in donations that are supporting local communities.
Intel chief executive officer Bob Swan said in a statement that the world faces an enormous challenge in fighting COVID-19 and Chipzilla was committed to accelerating access to technology that can combat the current pandemic and enable new technology and scientific discovery that better prepares society for future crises.
“We hope that by sharing our expertise, resources and technology, we can help to accelerate work that saves lives and expands access to critical services around the world during this challenging time", he said.
Approximately $40 million will fund the Intel COVID-19 Response and Readiness and Online Learning initiatives. The Intel COVID-19 Response and Readiness Initiative will provide funding to accelerate customer and partner advances in diagnosis, treatment and vaccine development, leveraging technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), high-performance computing and edge-to-cloud service delivery.
Through the initiative, Intel will help healthcare and life sciences manufacturers increase the availability of technology and solutions used by hospitals to diagnose and treat COVID-19. It will also support the creation of industry alliances that accelerate worldwide capacity, capability and policy to respond to this and future pandemics, building on Intel's own experience in driving technology innovation in the health and life sciences arena.
The Intel Online Learning Initiative will support education-focused nonprofit organizations and business partners to provide students without access to technology with devices and online learning resources. Working with public school districts, the initiative will enable PC donations, online virtual resources, study-at-home guides and device connectivity assistance.
The Intel Online Learning Initiative builds on Intel's long-standing commitment to technology that improves learning. It will begin immediately in regions with the greatest needs across the United States and expand globally.
The company has allocated up to $10 million for an innovation fund that supports requests from external partners and employee-led relief projects, addressing critical needs in their communities. For example:
Intel is working with India's Council of Scientific and Industrial Research and International Institute of Information Technology, Hyderabad, to deploy Intel client and server solutions to help achieve faster and less expensive COVID-19 testing and coronavirus genome sequencing to understand epidemiology and AI-based risk stratification for patients with comorbidities.
Chipzilla is working withIndia's National Association of Software and Service Companies to build an application ecosystem and multicloud back end to enable population-scale COVID-19 diagnostics, to predict outbreaks and to improve medical care management and administration.
In the UK, Intel is working with Dyson and medical consultancy firm TTP to supply FPGAs for CoVent, a new ventilator specifically designed in response to the U.K. government's request for help. The ventilator is pending regulatory approval and is designed to be bed mounted.
This technology response initiative builds on Intel's prior announcements of $10 million in donations that are supporting local communities during this critical time. Those donations include 1 million gloves, masks and other equipment for healthcare workers, $6 million from the Intel Foundation toward relief efforts in local communities and $4 million from Intel and its subsidiaries around the globe.
