Indian AI Platform For Cancer Care Gets BRICS Focus

An Indian artificial intelligence platform, iOncology.ai, being developed by Indian researchers to support cancer care has drawn attention at the recently concluded BRICS summit.

The review of the technology and its potential application in emerging economies was featured in a special issue of The BRICS Health Journal during the mega meet held on September 12 and 13.

The platform, iOncology.ai, has been developed by the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), New Delhi, and the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC), Pune, with support from the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY).

The development comes at a time when cancer systems across low- and middle-income countries are facing a growing burden, while access to early diagnosis, pathology, molecular testing and specialist oncology care remains uneven.

The platform is intended to bring different types of cancer-related information together and support clinicians in areas such as early detection, risk stratification, treatment planning, multidisciplinary review and longitudinal management of patient data.

The review titled “Transforming cancer care in emerging economies: India’s AI innovation”, led by Dr Ashok Sharma and colleagues from AIIMS, New Delhi, and C-DAC, Pune, examines the potential role of AI in strengthening cancer screening, diagnosis and access to specialist care.

The authors have placed iOncology.ai in the wider context of cancer control and digital-health systems in India and the BRICS countries. The review brings together cancer-burden data, health-system challenges, India's digital-health infrastructure and the emerging AI platform.

According to the review, the 11 BRICS member countries together account for more than 40% of the world's population and around nine million new cancer cases and 4.66 million cancer deaths. The burden, however, varies considerably between countries.

GLOBOCAN 2024 data cited in the review estimate around 5.15 million new cancer cases and 2.58 million deaths in China, while India recorded about 1.56 million new cases and 0.90 million deaths.

The numbers also point to a wider challenge. The global cancer burden is projected to increase substantially in the coming decades, with low- and middle-income countries expected to account for a disproportionate share of the increase. Population ageing and growth, urbanisation and changing lifestyles are among the factors driving the trend.

For many such countries, the problem is not limited to the number of cancer patients. The review points to gaps in organised screening, delayed diagnosis, inadequate pathology and molecular diagnostic facilities, shortages of trained oncology specialists and limited access to advanced treatment.

It is in this setting that the authors examine whether digital technologies can help extend specialist expertise beyond major cancer centres.

“India has an opportunity to demonstrate how locally developed innovations such as iOncology.ai can help bridge cancer-care disparities across the Global South,” Dr Sharma said.

“Through BRICS collaboration, our focus should be on strengthening cancer prevention, early diagnosis, treatment and therapy through evidence-based, interoperable solutions tailored to the needs of emerging economies,” he said.

The platform uses curated Indian clinical, radiological and histopathological datasets. The developers also envisage incorporating additional patient-level information, including genetic data, and linking the system with electronic health-record environments.

Such integration could be important in oncology, where decisions often depend on information spread across clinical records, radiology, pathology and, increasingly, molecular testing.

India's growing digital-health infrastructure could provide an enabling environment for such technologies. The review places iOncology.ai alongside initiatives such as the Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission (ABDM), which is designed to facilitate consent-based health-information exchange and interoperable digital health records.

The review notes that such infrastructure could potentially support AI-assisted diagnostics, digital pathology, tele-oncology and clinical decision-support systems. For patients in areas where specialist services are limited, digital systems could also help connect clinical teams with expertise available at larger centres.

But the authors have been cautious about what iOncology.ai can currently claim.

The platform is undergoing pilot-stage clinical validation and implementation evaluation. The review found no peer-reviewed evidence establishing its diagnostic accuracy, clinical utility or effectiveness in routine patient care.

Therefore, it cannot yet be considered a clinically validated AI system.

The distinction is important because performance demonstrated in a research environment does not necessarily translate into safe and reliable use in hospitals. AI systems need to be assessed across different patient groups, hospitals, disease patterns and clinical workflows before they can be widely deployed.

The authors have called for prospective, multicentre studies to evaluate diagnostic performance, safety, calibration, generalisability and clinical utility. They also emphasised the need to examine cost-effectiveness, usability and interoperability with ABDM-compatible systems.

Data governance and privacy would become particularly important if such platforms were used across countries. Differences in health systems, disease patterns, clinical practices and available technologies mean that an AI model developed using one population's data cannot automatically be assumed to perform similarly elsewhere.

The BRICS platform, however, could provide an opportunity for collaborative research rather than simply transferring technology from one country to another.

The review suggests that experience with platforms such as iOncology.ai could contribute to discussions on common oncology-data standards, digital pathology, cancer surveillance, multicentre research and the evaluation of AI using locally representative datasets.

This could be particularly relevant for countries where specialist oncology services are concentrated in a few urban centres.

For India, the immediate significance of iOncology.ai therefore lies less in replacing doctors or providing an established AI diagnosis and more in testing whether locally developed digital tools can eventually help organise complex cancer information and support clinical decision-making.

The review also focuses on breast and ovarian cancers, noting that breast cancer is among the leading cancers affecting women across most BRICS countries, while ovarian cancer is often detected at an advanced stage.

The larger challenge remains early diagnosis and timely access to appropriate care.

Dr Sharma said the objective was to use technology to empower clinicians and enable earlier and more equitable cancer care, particularly in resource-constrained settings.

For that promise to translate into patient benefit, however, the next step will be evidence. Rigorous clinical validation, independent evaluation, data protection and interoperability will determine whether iOncology. AI can move from a national research initiative to a tool that can be used safely in routine cancer care and, eventually, adapted for wider collaboration across the Global South.