New Delhi, February 19 India, as a global innovation engine, and the AI solutions built for healthcare have the potential to reform global models in this sector, Royal Philips CEO Roy Jakobs said on Thursday.
Speaking at a session of the AI India Summit here, Jakobs said that Artificial Intelligence (AI) will have the biggest impact on the healthcare sector, in which India represents a "remarkable opportunity," standing at the intersection of skills, digital infrastructure, and ambition.
India's digital infrastructure, including initiatives such as Ayushman Bharat and Digital Mission, is laying the foundation for interoperable health records and longitudinal patient data.
"The foundation for big data, unique healthcare ideas, and digital registries creates the possibility for continuity of care for a population at scale. This matters enormously," Jakobs, CEO of the Dutch health technology company, said.
Now healthcare is moving from "reactive to predictive", from fragmented to connected, from episodic to continuous," he said, adding that the systems being built today will shape the health of billions tomorrow.
Jakobs further said that AI systems thrive on structured, high-quality, longitudinal data. India's real-world complexity at scale – spanning urban and rural settings, public and private systems – are unparalleled testbeds for resilient solutions.
"Solutions built for India's scale and constraints have the potential to inform global models of care. And at Philips, we see India as a global innovation engine," he said.
Royal Philips, which has been present in India for 97 years, has invested significantly in R&D, manufacturing, digital platforms, AI engineering, and clinical collaboration through its Bengaluru and Pune innovation centres, he said. They are working across imaging, monitoring, and connected care.
"The work done here does not stay here alone. It shapes solutions deployed around the world. For example, AI algorithms developed and validated with diverse data sets here improve robustness across geographies," Jakobs added.
Clinical workflow solutions co-created with Indian partners are reforming designs that scale globally, in line with the Prime Minister’s vision, he said.
In his address, Jakobs said that currently healthcare systems around the globe are under immense pressure due to rising demand, chronic disease, stretched workforces, and high expectations of patients and society, which will accelerate the adoption of data and AI-driven innovation.
However, he also cautioned that AI in healthcare must be built on "trust, transparency, and continuous validation" and stressed that innovation and governance must advance together to ensure adoption and success.
"We must be clear about one thing. Healthcare runs on trust. AI in healthcare needs to be transparent. It must be validated continuously, not just approved once," he said.
Moreover, it must operate within regulatory frameworks, which should also evolve as the technology. Innovation and governance must advance together, with speed, because trust determines adoption.
"If they move at different speeds, trust erodes, and if they move in alignment, adoption accelerates," he said.
"Clinicians need to understand how systems arrive at their recommendations. Patients need to know how their data is protected. And regulators need confidence that safety and efficacy is rigorously monitored all the time," he said.
Philips has two R&D centres in India – the Healthcare Innovation Centre (HIC) based in Pune, and an innovation campus in Bengaluru.
