CANCOM Austria and Leftshift One combine expertise in pioneering AI projects: How an Austrian IT duo decodes the intestinal flora
GRAZ/VIENNA/ZURICH. Digestion, metabolism, immune defense or the development of inflammation: The 100 trillion bacteria in our gut are particularly important for our health. The intestinal flora or microbiome - as the entirety of all intestinal bacteria is called - is a highly complex ecosystem that is in a finely tuned balance with our body. In order to better understand the complex interactions between intestinal bacteria and our health, researchers are relying on extensive analyses of the microbiome - and also on expertise from Austria: while the Graz-based AI pioneer Leftshift One is analyzing the data with AI support, CANCOM Austria is contributing the necessary software solutions for the collection, secure processing and presentation of the data in this project.
Deployment in Switzerland
The high-tech applications developed over the last twelve months are being used at Ortho-Analytic, a Swiss laboratory for integrative medicine, which is one of the innovation leaders in the umbrella region in the field of modern microbiome analysis. "A single sample sent to the laboratory contains more than 300,000 data points. With the artificial intelligence we have implemented, it is possible to identify correlations that would be impossible in a human test," explains Leftshift One CEO Patrick Ratheiser. "The AI-supported analyses lead to logical conclusions that not only enable better coordinated treatment options and the use of more effective medication, but also allow optimized nutrition plans as a treatment method," emphasizes the CEO of the high-tech company.
"MyGPT" provides the technological foundation
Even before the extensive analysis, the patient's data - for example on nutritional issues, habits, behavior and previous illnesses - is recorded via a chat-based user interface with voice input. The advantage of this is that the patient's natural language input is correlated with the microbiome analysis data. Technologically, this is realized on the basis of a so-called plug-in. This software module originates from the "MyGPT" application from Leftshift One - and is just one of many innovative enhancements to Leftshift One. "This application is part of our customized ChatGPT for companies," says Ratheiser.
Joining forces
CANCOM Austria (formerly Kapsch BusinessCom), a domestic IT company, is also responsible for the underlying software development: Austria's leading ICT solution and service provider and digitalization partner has been part of the CANCOM Group since June 2023 and has been operating under the name CANCOM Austria since January 2024. With 5,600 employees at 80 locations and a turnover of around 1.5 billion euros in 2023, the CANCOM Group offers a wide range of services and solutions, including business solutions and managed services for cloud transformation, AI and analytics, workplace, enterprise mobility and IT security. This also includes hosting and as-a-service models. CANCOM Austria and its subsidiaries in Romania, the Czech Republic and Switzerland employ a total of around 1,650 people.
"Above all, our expertise in the area of software development and platform integration could be brought into the current project," confirms Franz Semmernegg, CEO CANCOM Austria. "By joining forces with Leftshift One, we were able to create a synergetic link between cutting-edge AI analysis and software solutions. This opens up new dimensions in microbiome analytics."
Patrick Ratheiser adds: "We are delighted to join forces with CANCOM Austria to combine our complementary skills in a forward-looking partnership. We are contributing our core expertise and our in-depth understanding of artificial intelligence, which we have built up over many years, to this collaboration. The cooperation with CANCOM Austria also gives us the opportunity to significantly expand our reach and capacities. With the manpower and resources that CANCOM Austria brings to the table, we are now in a position to handle extensive projects that were previously beyond our reach."