Qure.ai, the Mumbai-based pioneer in deep learning solutions for medical imaging, has received a major grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to further develop and validate its AI-powered point-of-care ultrasound (POCUS) technology. The funding will focus on two high-impact clinical applications: automated interpretation of lung ultrasound for pneumonia and other respiratory conditions, and obstetric ultrasound for fetal assessment and maternal health monitoring.

Pneumonia remains a leading cause of death among children under five in low- and middle-income countries, while delays in detecting high-risk pregnancies contribute significantly to maternal mortality. In many rural and underserved areas, access to skilled sonographers and radiologists is extremely limited, forcing reliance on clinical examination alone or long-distance referrals. Qure.ai’s qUS models address this gap by enabling minimally trained health workers to perform and interpret basic ultrasound scans with AI guidance, providing immediate decision support at the point of care.

The Gates Foundation grant will support:

Refinement and retraining of Qure’s lung and obstetric ultrasound algorithms using diverse datasets from Africa and South Asia

Prospective clinical validation studies in real-world primary and community health settings

Integration of AI outputs into low-cost portable ultrasound devices
Training programmes for frontline health workers (ASHAs, ANMs, community nurses) to use the technology confidently and safely

Evaluation of impact on diagnostic accuracy, referral patterns, treatment initiation, and patient outcomes

Qure.ai’s existing qXR (chest X-ray) and qMSK (musculoskeletal) models have already received WHO endorsement and are deployed in more than 90 countries. The new ultrasound-focused effort builds on this foundation, extending AI assistance to a modality that is increasingly affordable and portable but still underutilised due to training and interpretation barriers.

Prashant Warier, CEO and Co-founder of Qure.ai, said: “This grant from the Gates Foundation is a powerful validation of our mission to make high-quality diagnostics accessible everywhere. By bringing AI-powered ultrasound interpretation to the hands of frontline workers, we can detect life-threatening conditions earlier and save more lives especially among mothers and children in the hardest-to-reach communities.”

The project aligns with the Gates Foundation’s priorities in maternal, newborn, and child health, as well as its broader commitment to leveraging AI for global health equity. It also supports India’s national goals under the Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission and the push for decentralised, technology-enabled primary care.

Early pilot work is already underway in select districts in India and sub-Saharan Africa, with full-scale validation studies planned for 2026–2027. The initiative is expected to generate robust evidence on the clinical and economic impact of AI-assisted POCUS in low-resource settings, potentially influencing WHO guidelines and national health policies in multiple countries.