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The U.S. Dept. of Energy, Dept. of Health and Human Services and Dept. of Veterans Affairs announced today that they formed a COVID-19 Insights Partnership.
According to a news release, the trio of government agencies formed the partnership as an initiative to coordinate and share health data, as well as to research the virus and add expertise to aid in the fight against COVID-19.
HHS and the VA will utilize the DOE’s high-performance computing and artificial intelligence resources to conduct COVID-19 research and to analyze health data that, according to the agencies, would otherwise not be possible to analyze.
The research and analysis conducted through the partnership is slated to focus on the development outcomes of vaccines and therapeutics, along with virology and other scientific topics surrounding the virus. The DOE’s Summit supercomputer at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory is currently aiding in COVID-19 research by running analyses on a variety of health data, the agencies said.
“The Department of Energy is proud to be a member of the COVID-19 Insights Partnership,” Secretary of Energy Dan Brouillette said in a news release. “Our nation’s understanding of COVID-19 has already benefitted greatly from our world-leading high-performance computing and artificial intelligence resources, and we look forward to continuing our coordination across Federal departments and agencies in the fight against this virus.”
“This unprecedented data and computing partnership is the latest addition to President Trump’s whole-of-government effort against COVID-19,” added HHS Secretary Alex Azar. “The volume and quality of the data HHS has on COVID-19 has advanced by leaps and bounds in recent months. The Department of Energy’s world-class resources will help us derive new insights from the data we gather to help patients and protect our country.”