In a bid to fight the rising burden of tuberculosis (TB) in India, Indian startup Salcit Technologies is exploring to use of Google’s Health Acoustic Representations (HeAR) model to enhance early detection of TB based on cough sounds, the tech giant said on Tuesday.In a blog post, Google said that its HeAR bioacoustic foundation model is trained on approximately 300 million pieces of audio data, and in particular roughly 100 million cough sounds. It can help extend screening for TB more widely across India, the company said.
The Hyderabad-based Salcit Technologies will use the HeAR model to build on research for its product Swaasa, it noted.
Launched in 2020, Swaasa uses an AI-driven algorithm that can assess if human lungs are abnormal.