Center for Artificial Intelligence in Medicine & Imaging
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AIMI-AWS Cloud Credit Program

The AIMI Center in collaboration with Amazon Web Services (AWS), is offering Stanford researchers the opportunity to receive AWS research credits in support of AIMI’s research vision. This call for proposals aims to stimulate and support research in the field of artificial intelligence in health medicine that distinctively takes advantage of cloud capabilities. Proposals of all sizes up to $25,000 to be used over 12-months will be considered, from initial exploration of cloud computing usability for projects to more advanced-stage projects.

Program Priorities

  • Development and/or dissemination of AI systems that enhance early detection, reduce diagnostic errors, select appropriate treatment, or improve the quality and efficiency of current clinical practices;
  • Prospective evaluation of decision support algorithms in the clinical environment;
  • Creation of large training sets for machine learning systems, including the development of methods that automatically label clinical images;
  • Creation of novel AI-based methods for clinical image creation, reconstruction, and/or enhancement;
  • Above projects that focus on health disparities based on socioeconomic disparities;
  • Above projects that distinctively take advantage of AWS cloud capabilities including but not limited to: using particular AWS services or datasets, needing dynamic scalability to high distributed peak computing availability, needing high-availability servers, using serverless event-driven computing, evaluation and testing against a wide variety of machine architectures, and needing not widely available particular capabilities, such as high-end GPUs. 

Eligibility

Each proposal must have a Principal Investigator who is an affiliated faculty of the AIMI Center. All members of the Stanford faculty are welcome to apply for AIMI faculty affiliation.  Faculty with PI eligibility include those with tenure line (UTL), medical center line (MCL) research (NTLR), clinician educator (CE), or Instructor who are full-time Stanford employees. Post-doctoral scholars and trainees who are part of a lab of an AIMI affiliated faculty and have permission from their mentor faculty to submit a proposal as PI are welcome to apply.

Requirements

The research must relate directly to AI in medicine, and the objectives of the project should include an outcome that will benefit patients. Awardees must be willing to present progress and results of their project at AIMI meetings, e.g., research meetings, seminars, symposiums, and retreats, and AWS corporate meetings if requested. Awardees are expected to acknowledge and inform the AIMI Center for any papers, presentations, and grants that involve the funded project. Awardees must be willing to allow the AIMI Center and the department to promote the project through its website, social media, and other communication channels. 

Timely and substantive reporting of the value derived from cloud credits grants is important to AIMI’s ability to continue and expand our grant programs.

  • Six months after account set up, or when applying for additional credits for a previously-approved project, recipients must provide a 1-2 paragraph summary of research status and results, credit usage, and next steps.
  • One year after account set up or upon exhaustion of the credits allocated, recipients must provide a final report of research results, credit usage, and a list of publications, articles, or conference talks emerging from the research. Projects receiving larger credit grants will be expected to provide more detailed reports.

In addition, you should acknowledge the connection between your project and your use of AWS via a research credit, with a statement like the following: “This project is based upon work supported in part by Amazon Web Services.” 

Please read the AWS Promotional Credit Terms & Conditions

Submission Guidelines

The application requires the following:

  • PI and Applicant information
  • Scope of Work - up to 1 page
    • Brief overview of the project (e.g., background, objectives, expected significance, relation to longer-term goals, relation to the present state of knowledge in the field, etc.)
    • Expected results or deliverables and timeline
    • Description of experimental methods and computational work, including how you will use the cloud credits for this work
    • Briefly justify how the requested machine type(s) and estimated usage is suitable for the proposed work
  • Budget: use the AWS Pricing Calculator  to estimate usage and produce a budget. You will need to share the URL that AWS provides for the estimate.
  • An active AWS account number

Please note:

  • Applications will be accepted on a rolling basis until all AIMI-AWS credits are allocated. Applications submitted by October 31, 2024, will receive enhanced technical support from AWS. Applicants will receive notification of results within 1-2 weeks of submission.
  • Proposals up to $25,000 will be considered. Smaller proposals (under $3,000) will receive expedited review and can have a narrower scope.
  • Project period: One calendar year from the date the account is successfully set up. Extensions are not allowed.
  • Depending on your project's stage, we encourage potential users to submit smaller proposals for initial exploration of cloud computing usability.
  • Larger proposals are more likely to succeed if they foster meaningful interdisciplinary collaborations across Stanford University and beyond. Priority will be given to proposals demonstrating boldness, ingenuity, and potential transformative impact compared to research typically supported by existing funding mechanisms.
  • Award selection: These grants are funded by AWS. Award decisions will be made by Stanford AIMI.
 

APPLY HERE

Data Security

AWS is suitable for Low, Moderate and High Risk Data as classified by the Information Security Office. Learn more about comprehensive information on classification.

AWS is authorized for use with High Risk Data after a Data Risk Assessment is completed. Applicant agrees to adhere to the Minimum Security Standards for Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) and Containerized Solutions and the Administrative Guide Section 6.3.1: Information Security.

High Risk Data, including Protected Health Information can be processed on most AWS services. See this list of eligible services for HIPAA data.

Contact

Please email us at aimi@stanford.edu for any questions.