President Donald Trump on Tuesday signed an executive order directing his administration to invest millions into artificial intelligence pediatric cancer research.
The order directs the Make America Healthy Again Commission to work with Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and other AI leaders to create new ways the emerging technology can improve “diagnoses, treatments, cures, and prevention strategies” for childhood cancer.
It builds upon Trump’s Childhood Cancer Data Initiative, created in 2019 in his first term in office. It collects and analyzes pediatric cancer data and will now be used with AI.
“AI can be used to build upon this data initiative to produce meaningful solutions to pediatric, adolescent, and young adulthood cancer,” the order said. “This application of AI has the potential to transform the Nation’s current care and research approach for pediatric cancer.”
The order states that children and families have battled cancer and its long-term chronic effects while health care systems rely on outdated technology.
“We must prioritize investment in AI-enabled science, build world-class scientific datasets, and empower researchers and clinicians with the tools needed to translate data and AI capabilities into improved care,” the order said.
Trump said in the Oval Office on Tuesday that he was thrilled to sign the order to accelerate research and use the “extraordinary potential of artificial intelligence to fight this terrible disease.”
However, the announcement comes as the Trump administration made cuts to millions of dollars of research grants and a roughly 40% budget cut to the National Institutes of Health, causing researchers to sound the alarm on the future of health care research.