AI will cure cancer in our lifetime, claims boss of UK chip giant

The boss of the biggest UK-headquartered tech firm has said that artificial intelligence will find a cure for cancer that humans cannot in our lifetimes.

Haas also told the BBC that AI would lead to widespread humanoid robots in the next five years, but that its current rapid growth was being held up by a shortage of chips needed to build data centres.

Arm designs the brains or CPUs of microchips already used in hundreds of billions of phones, cars, smartwatches and gadgets across the globe.

Haas, who stepped down from the board of British pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca in April, told the BBC's Big Boss Interview podcast: "AI is going to... find a cure for cancer that today you and I, other humans [could] not in our lifetimes. I believe in our lifetime, AI will help cure cancer.

"However, going forward, as we feed more and more of the models into these computers, and the computers get more sophisticated to run the models, they're going to solve it," said Haas, who also holds a key role in Arm's main owner, the Japan-based Softbank, which has a range of investments in tech including in OpenAI.

He said in labs like his, they are training AI on data generated themselves from patient samples.

"That kind of prediction could cut years from the time it takes to develop new treatments. This is where AI delivers real benefit to patients."

In a wide-ranging interview, Haas said the chips Arm designs would fuel self-learning AI robots "in a very large way" in manufacturing, cleaning, security, building bridges, and doing repairs within a decade.

Addressing concerns that AI would lead to mass job losses, Haas said while there would be some change for workers, "the estimates of jobs going away and being completely replaced by machines is a bit overstated" and outweighed by new opportunities.

Arm's power-efficient technology was now being used in half of AI data centres worldwide, he said.

The CEO of chip design company Arm tells the BBC AI will help cure cancer, lead to widespread humanoid robots in the next five years, but says its rapid growth is being held up by a shortage of chips needed in data centres.

There have, however, been challenges in the supply of many types of chips, which Haas believes is holding back the roll-out of AI and data centres.