AI Companies Accelerate Healthcare Expansion
According to TechCrunch AI, several major AI companies made significant healthcare-related announcements within a single week, signaling intensified industry focus on the sector.
OpenAI acquired Torch, a health startup, though details about the acquisition terms were not disclosed in the source material. Separately, Anthropic launched “Claude for Health” (one source refers to it as “Claude for healthcare”), expanding its AI assistant’s capabilities into the medical sector.
On the investment front, Merge Labs, a company backed by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, closed a $250 million seed funding round, according to TechCrunch AI. The round valued the company at $850 million.
TechCrunch AI characterized the developments as AI companies “clustering around healthcare” with “money and products pouring into” the sector, describing it as an “AI healthcare gold rush.”
The concentrated timing of these announcements—all occurring within the same week—suggests coordinated or competitive positioning among major AI players to establish presence in healthcare applications.