Google ARDA eye-screening AI passes one million patients

Google's diabetic retinopathy screening model ARDA has now been used on more than a million patients across three health systems in India, Thailand and Australia, according to a Comment in Nature Medicine published on 23 September 2026.

The three anchor deployments are named in the paper: the Aravind Eye Care System in Madurai, Rajavithi Hospital in Bangkok, and Lions Outback Vision at the Lions Eye Institute in Western Australia. The authors, a team led from Google alongside clinician co-authors at each site, argue that scaling a deep learning tool across "three highly distinct settings" yields "cross-cutting insights that may inform the expansion of healthcare artificial intelligence globally."

Google is not running the screenings itself. ARDA is licensed to three commercial operators, Forus Health, AuroLab and Perceptra, under an arrangement targeting six million AI-assisted screenings across India and Thailand within ten years. Two of the researchers we track shared the paper the day it went live.

The Comment lists Alphabet Inc. and subsidiaries as the funder.