PAC-AID launches — and a $12M AI data center comes to Hawaiʻi
Welcome to the very first issue of What’s New in PACAID? — a monthly note on what our Center is building. Here’s what happened this month.
The Center is live
The Pacific Center for Artificial Intelligence and Data Science in Medicine (PAC-AID) is officially up and running, and our new website is now online. It’s your home for our cores, research projects, people, news, and — soon — pilot funding opportunities.
Hawaiʻi’s first biomedical AI data center
More than $12 million in NIH funding is converting a room at the University of Hawaiʻi Cancer Center into Hawaiʻi’s first-of-its-kind AI data center for healthcare. Over the next five years it will power our work building biomedical datasets that reflect the diverse populations of Hawaiʻi and the Pacific — so that AI tools can serve our communities more accurately. U.S. Sen. Brian Schatz, who pushed for the funding, called it “very good news for Hawaiʻi.”
Pilot Projects Program — coming soon
We’ll soon announce the call for applications for the Fall 2026 cycle of our Pilot Projects Program. Each award pairs direct funding with hands-on access to the MEDAI Core, the new AI data center, curated representative datasets, and mentoring toward independent NIH funding. Early-stage investigators across Hawaiʻi and the Pacific should start getting ready.
Explore our research
Our new Research & Pilots Program hub brings together the Center’s shared cores, the four funded research projects, and the pilot program in one place.
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