AI is coming to the Cardano blockchain in the form of Grace, the AI robot developed by Awakening Health, a joint venture between Hanson Robotics and SingularityNET. They have chosen Cardano to ensure that Grace meets the stringent guidelines set out by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) and the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) framework.

Grace has been designed to interact with the elderly and others who have been isolated, whether because of the Covid-19 pandemic or for other reasons. She looks like a healthcare worker, speaks English and Korean, and takes patients’ temperatures using a thermal camera. She can also measure people’s responsiveness and mirror their emotions, helping her not just to come up with diagnoses but also to respond empathetically.

Apart from the inherent security and privacy that it will provide, the move to Cardano will dramatically improve Grace's performance and lead to lower, predictable, and stable costs. Cardano also solves the scalability challenge, meaning Grace’s brain can operate at the highest level and process biodata quicker.

Ben Goertzel, creator of the AI technology for Grace and CEO of SingularityNET, said: ‘While Covid-19 has had a huge impact on physical health, the mental health impacts will echo long after the lockdowns lift.

‘This is why solutions like Grace are so important, to combat loneliness and ease the burden on frontline workers. And with Cardano’s market-leading capabilities, she will be able to scale to meet this global challenge.

‘As we gradually ramp up Grace's general-intelligence capabilities over the next few years, she will be able to serve more and more valuable functions in the elder-care and medical space – learning more and more about humanity and absorbing human values as she goes.’