Health Daily - 22/01/2026

• The Gates Foundation and OpenAI announced a $50 million “Horizon 1000” partnership to deploy AI in 1,000 primary‑care centers across Africa by 2028, launching first in Rwanda. 
• The initiative aims to help frontline health workers follow complex protocols, cut administrative burdens, and enable patients to monitor their own health. 
• It targets a critical shortage of 5.6 million health professionals in Sub‑Saharan Africa, where primary care remains inaccessible to nearly half the global population. 
• CEIMIA warns that scaling AI will face hurdles such as limited internet (9 % of Africans lack coverage), electricity gaps, scarce data, and low government and civil‑society involvement. 

• OpenEvidence raised $250 million in a Series D round, doubling its valuation to $12 billion, with investors including Thrive Capital, DST, Sequoia, Google Ventures and others. 
• The AI‑powered medical search engine now serves over 40% of U.S. physicians, handling about 18 million clinical consultations in December alone and reaching 100 million patients last year. 
• Partnerships with the AMA, NEJM, JAMA, and NCCN provide licensed, journal‑based content that distinguishes OpenEvidence from other chatbots and fuels its “medical super‑intelligence” roadmap. 
• The company reported more than $100 million in annual revenue and will use the new funding for training specialized AI agents, compute costs, and expanding content licensing. 

• Australia’s National Reconstruction Fund Corporation (NRFC) is taking a $20 million preferred equity stake in Sydney-based neurotechnology startup Omniscient Neurotechnology as part of its Series D funding round (targeting $36 million).
• Omniscient uses advanced AI-powered connectomics to create highly detailed, individualized brain maps from MRI scans. Its flagship platform, Quicktome®, is FDA-approved and already in use at major hospitals and research institutions globally.
• The funding will help commercialise Quicktome, expand the company’s data science team, develop next-generation clinical applications, and support the creation of over 40 new skilled jobs in AI, neuroscience, and product development, with plans to establish a connectomics centre of excellence in Sydney and grow in the US.
• NRFC sees the investment as supporting Australian innovation in a cutting-edge medical AI field, retaining valuable intellectual property locally and strengthening the country’s position as a global leader in advanced healthcare technology.

• Apple is reportedly working on a small AI-powered wearable device about the size of an AirTag, known as an “AI pin,” as part of its broader push into AI technologies.
• The pin is said to have a flat, circular design with cameras (standard + wide-angle), three microphones, a speaker, a physical button, and wireless charging. It’s intended to capture visual and audio context around the wearer.
• It could function independently for AI interactions (potentially running Apple’s future Siri chatbot), positioning itself as a voice-first, ambient AI wearable rather than a traditional fitness tracker or smartwatch.
• The project is still early, with a possible release as soon as 2027, and Apple’s move may be in response to other companies developing similar AI wearables (e.g., OpenAI and Motorola).

• The “Neurotechnology Shift” describes the migration of brain‑reading wearables from labs and hospitals into everyday life, enabling devices to register neural activity for routine decisions such as checking a purchase budget. 
• Non‑invasive consumer projects like MIT’s AlterEgo silent‑speech interface and Meta’s wristband that translates subtle nerve signals into digital commands are spearheading the market for everyday neuro‑devices. 
• Early real‑world uses include fatigue monitoring for drivers and pilots, attention tracking in classrooms, and mind‑reading communication aids that already help ALS patients interact with caregivers. 
• Researchers caution that accuracy, privacy, consent and unequal access remain unresolved, calling for concrete ethical guidelines and governance as neurotechnology becomes a common social infrastructure.