Microsoft's General Manager of Global Health and Life Sciences Elena Bonfiglioli, left, and Seegene CEO Chung Jong-yoon pose after signing their strategic collaboration in London in this Jan. 23, 2024 photo. Courtesy of Seegene

Seegene, a Korean diagnostics solutions company, showcased its use of Microsoft's artificial intelligence (AI) technologies in expediting diagnostic reagent development processes during the U.S. tech company's AI forum in Seoul Wednesday.

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella arrived in Korea Tuesday for the Microsoft AI Tour in Seoul forum, which brought together Korean firms involved in Microsoft's AI ecosystem to present their model use cases to participants.

According to participants of the closed-door event, Seegene participated in a panel discussion on the health-care industry and introduced the company's plans to leverage Microsoft's Azure OpenAI Service in its diagnostic reagent development processes.

Azure OpenAI provides application programming interface access to OpenAI's language models, such as GPT-4, through Microsoft's secure cloud platform, Azure, enabling developers to integrate AI functions into their applications.

During the panel discussion, Baek Young-seok, Seegene's head of strategy and planning, introduced the company's initiative to upgrade its automated development system using Azure OpenAI.

Seegene officials also announced plans to automate the research planning phase for diagnostic reagents using Azure OpenAI. Another Seegene official stated that the average time spent on tasks such as data searching and analysis was reduced from the current average of seven hours to just 20 minutes after introducing AI.

He also noted that Seegene plans to adopt a statistical analysis system using Microsoft Fabric, an AI-powered data integration platform, to identify correlations between various pathogens that cause similar symptoms, thereby supporting more accurate diagnoses, according to participants.

The projects align with Seegene's initiative to collaborate with scientists and experts across the world in developing diagnostic reagents tailored to the needs of each country by using Seegene's digitalized development system in support of Microsoft's technology. For this, the two companies signed their strategic partnership in January last year.

"It's just unbelievable that they are building this platform for every scientist in the world to be able to create better diagnostics," Nadella said during his keynote speech.

"Through our collaboration with Microsoft, we will be able to accelerate the global expansion of Seegene's key technology-sharing initiative," a Seegene official said. "By integrating data-driven precision diagnostics and AI technology with Seegene's syndromic testing technology, we will help build a world free from diseases."

Along with Seegene, a number of Korean companies using Microsoft's AI ecosystem introduced their model cases. LG CNS presented a case of its client introducing a generative AI-powered search service for product designs using Azure. Amorepacific also showcased its building of a beauty counselor bot for customers.