{"id":242395,"date":"2025-10-27T00:40:09","date_gmt":"2025-10-27T00:40:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/242395\/"},"modified":"2025-10-27T00:40:09","modified_gmt":"2025-10-27T00:40:09","slug":"google-president-ruth-porat-we-should-be-able-to-cure-cancer-in-our-lifetime-with-ai","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/242395\/","title":{"rendered":"Google President Ruth Porat: \u2018We should be able to cure cancer in our lifetime\u2019 with AI"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ruth Porat, Google\u2019s president and chief investment officer<\/a>, struck an optimistic note about the future of artificial intelligence at the Fortune Global Forum<\/a>, telling an audience in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, that \u201cwe are all privileged to live at this time in history\u201d because of the opportunity AI presents\u2014a revolution she described as \u201cso much more than a chatbot.\u201d<\/p>\n

Speaking alongside Saudi Arabia\u2019s Minister of Investment, Khalid Al-Falih<\/a>, and Barclays Group CEO C.S. Venkatakrishnan<\/a>, Porat painted a sweeping vision of AI\u2019s economic, social, and scientific potential, highlighting how many Nobel prize-winners she is fortunate to work alongside at Alphabet<\/a>. She framed artificial intelligence not merely as a technological advance, but as a transformative force capable of reshaping entire industries, powering economic growth, and driving human progress at an unprecedented pace.<\/p>\n

Porat said \u201cpeople are playing\u201d with AI through chatbots, and that is \u201cgreat, because that gets you on the journey. But then the question is: what does it mean for my country? What does it mean for my business?\u201d She argued that it\u2019s underappreciated how \u201cwe\u2019re already living\u201d through significant breakthroughs in health and science.<\/p>\n

Could AI cure cancer?<\/p>\n

Porat pointed to breakthroughs in health care as proof of AI\u2019s broader promise. She highlighted DeepMind\u2019s AlphaFold<\/a>, which maps protein structures in 3D, noting it has been described as \u201cthe greatest contribution to drug discovery in our lifetime.\u201d The open-source project has been used by millions of scientists in more than 190 countries, accelerating research into diseases previously considered intractable.<\/p>\n

She also said significant work is being done on early diagnosis of diseases. \u201cWe all know early diagnosis can be the difference between survival or not or how difficult the course of treatment is.\u201d In cancer, for instance, that comes in seeing metastatic cells early enough to treat the disease before it spreads. This is very much the proverbial \u201cfinding the needle in the haystack,\u201d she said, likening its application to cybersecurity and finding malicious code.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe should be able to cure cancer in our lifetime,\u201d Porat asserted, calling AI a key driver of scientific discovery. She spoke of early cancer detection, AI-powered cybersecurity defenses that identify threats before they occur, and productivity gains that free workers \u201cfrom the administrative tasks that take us away from what matters most.\u201d<\/p>\n

Balancing speed and responsibility<\/p>\n

Porat and Venkatakrishnan both discussed how the moment demands urgency from governments and businesses alike. \u201cEvery head of state I meet,\u201d Porat explained, \u201cwants to be part of this digital transformation.\u201d She pointed to staggering potential economic benefits, noting that estimates show AI could unlock a $200 billion GDP boost for Saudi Arabia and \u201ctrillions globally.\u201d But unlocking that value, she argued, will require serious investment in both energy and infrastructure.<\/p>\n

In the United States, for example, she said simply modernizing the electrical grid could create 100 gigawatts of unused capacity, a figure backed up by independent research<\/a>. She said the power is effectively sitting there, \u201cwaiting to be connected.\u201d Another bottleneck is a lack of talent in the form of the blue-collar trades, specifically electricians, Porat noted, echoing other Fortune 500 leaders such as Ford CEO Jim Farley<\/a>. Google, she added, is investing in training programs for electricians as part of its workforce initiatives, acknowledging that technological progress only matters if societies prepare workers to participate in it. \u201cThere are jobs that come in trades as well as the outside across business.\u201d<\/p>\n

Venkatakrishnan discussed the \u201chuge amount of investment, hundreds of billions if not trillions happening all over the world.\u201d He impliclitly acknowledged discussions about a potential bubble in AI infrastructure, saying that \u201cin all large capital-investment cycles, there will be some misallocation, some misinvestment. It\u2019s always true. And I think that\u2019s important for people to guard against.\u201d He argued that, whether the demand turns out to be 1x or 5x of a certain projection, investing in infrastructure\u2014and by extension the tradesmen who build and run it\u2014is a wise choice. Venkatakrishnan added that major capital cycles also require partners you can trust and \u201cwho are there for the long term and who will help you through the teething troubles.\u201d<\/p>\n

Her message echoed themes of inclusion and global partnership that ran throughout the panel, particularly as Saudi Arabia positions itself as a regional hub for digital infrastructure and AI investment. Al-Falih emphasized his country\u2019s long-term strategy of building supply chain resilience and energy capacity to power the digital economy of the future.<\/p>\n

Porat closed by urging leaders to really dig in and reimagine what\u2019s possible in their own organizations. The transformative potential of this technology, she said, lies not only in boosting productivity but in elevating human creativity and purpose.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ruth Porat, Google\u2019s president and chief investment officer, struck an optimistic note about the future of artificial intelligence…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":242396,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[62,276,277,37019,49,48,114008,192,13341,61],"class_list":{"0":"post-242395","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-artificial-intelligence","8":"tag-ai","9":"tag-artificial-intelligence","10":"tag-artificialintelligence","11":"tag-barclays","12":"tag-ca","13":"tag-canada","14":"tag-fortune-global-forum","15":"tag-google","16":"tag-saudi-arabia","17":"tag-technology"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/242395","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=242395"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/242395\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/242396"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=242395"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=242395"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=242395"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}