Lenovo and the European Institute of Oncology: an AI supercomputer for research on prevention and treatment

The Lenovo supercomputer accelerates computing programs for research and treatment with machine learning models available to the European Institute of Oncology and the Monzino Cardiology Center

 Lenovo will provide the IEO Monzino Group with a High Performance Computing (HPC) system to accelerate scientific research in oncology and cardiology at the European Institute of Oncology and the Monzino Cardiology Center. The supercomputer will support the studies of bioinformaticians and researchers working for the Group with the aim of creating predictive, prognostic or diagnostic computational models based on the interactions of protein structures. These models will be derived from advanced molecular simulations thanks to the adoption of AI algorithms and the clinical data available in the Clinical DataLakes of the two Institutes.

Artificial intelligence makes it possible to process large amounts of data, influencing the various stages of the development path and the delivery of new therapeutic solutions to patients together with effective preventive tools. The amount of data available and made compatible by AI is making it possible to accelerate the process of selecting molecules that are subsequently studied in more depth in the development of clinical trials. This is because it is possible to make the identification of potential molecular candidates and interaction mechanisms much faster and more efficient. Thanks to AI and the ability to process large amounts of data, the Group’s specialists can now think of increasingly customized solutions.

To address these issues, the IEO Monzino Group researchers have developed AI algorithm software platforms to facilitate access to advanced bioinformatics tools that require high performance and computing power. This led to the collaboration with Lenovo, which designed an HPC infrastructure for the IEO Monzino Group that includes machine learning models to extract clinical, molecular and multi-omics
information.

“For years, the Group has adopted the “data-driven” strategy for research, care and governance of the institutes,” commented Annarosa Farina, Engineer, Chief Information Manager and Chief Data Officer IEO Group. Our studies, from basic research to advanced clinical research, are based on big data. Lenovo’s HPC infrastructure accelerates and streamlines data processing and is critical to implementing our strategy. The multidisciplinary approach is crucial for our research work: the workload parameters and the AI algorithms to be adopted are defined with the contribution of researchers, doctors, bioinformaticians and data scientists, who all together collaborate in the extraction of the “insights” of these elaborations, with different and complementary skills. Furthermore, I want to express our appreciation for the consultancy service offered by Lenovo in the design phase, which greatly contributed to the success of the project.”

Lenovo provides the IEO Monzino Group with a 475 TFlops HPC system, consisting of Lenovo ThinkSystem SR645 V3 and ThinkSystem SR685a V3 servers, powered by NVIDIA H200 GPUs, the first GPUs to offer 141 gigabytes (GB) of HBM3e memory at 4.8 terabytes per second (TB/s). The infrastructure is supported by a Lenovo ThinkSystem DE6400F storage system for advanced data management.

“We are extremely proud to make our systems available to the IEO Monzino Group to accelerate scientific research. Thanks to the ability of our solutions to manage huge amounts of data and accelerate analysis, Lenovo’s High Performance Computing will contribute to advances in personalized medicine,” commented Alessandro de Bartolo, General Manager, Italy, Infrastructure Solutions Group, Lenovo. The application of AI in this area is a virtuous example of how it can have a positive impact on our society, improving the accuracy of diagnoses and therapies, and leading to greater efficiency in healthcare activities. Today Lenovo supercomputers are at the center of scientific research, in the most prestigious Italian and world centers.”

The project was carried out with the partner Lenovo HPCNow! and Lenovo Professional Services, which provided technical and organizational best practices, implementing open source software solutions to improve access to hardware and optimize the research center’s operational activities.

The European Institute of Oncology (IEO) was founded in 1994 based on an idea of Umberto Veronesi. It is a single-specialty Scientific Institute for Research, Hospitalization and Healthcare (IRCCS) which, inspired by the most innovative models in the field of international oncology, offers the best available treatments while developing intense research. It completely integrates the different areas of the fight against tumours: primary prevention, screening, diagnosis, treatment, follow-up, and both experimental and clinical research, with constant attention to the quality of the service offered. The IEO is one of the first examples of a hospital that puts the patient at the center: all activity revolves around the needs of the sick person as a whole and well beyond the dimension of his/her illness.

The Monzino Cardiology Center is the first hospital in Europe dedicated exclusively to the research, treatment and prevention of cardiovascular diseases. It was established in Milan in 1981 and in 1992 it became the first Scientific Institute for Research, Hospitalization and Healthcare with an exclusive cardiovascular focus. In 2000, it joined the IEO Group. The Monzino Cardiology Center is inspired by the values ​​of high specialization, research, interdisciplinarity and continuity of service, always keeping the focus of its activities on the person and the quality of services provided.