Google's ARDA eye-screening AI tops 1M patients across 3 countries

Google's diabetic retinopathy screening model, ARDA, has crossed one million patients screened across three sites in India, Thailand and Australia, according to a Comment published 23 September 2026 in Nature Medicine.

The three anchor deployments are the Aravind Eye Care System in Madurai, Rajavithi Hospital in Bangkok, and Lions Outback Vision at the Lions Eye Institute in Western Australia. Corresponding author Richa Tiwari of Google and co-authors including Paisan Ruamviboonsuk of Rajavithi Hospital and Angus Turner of the Lions Eye Institute frame the piece as a deployment-lessons report rather than a new model paper. Scaling the tool across three highly distinct settings, the authors write, offers "cross-cutting insights that may inform the expansion of healthcare artificial intelligence globally."

Rather than run screening itself, Google has licensed ARDA to three commercial operators, Forus Health, AuroLab and Perceptra, with a stated target of six million AI-assisted screenings across India and Thailand within ten years. The Comment discloses Alphabet funding and consultancy ties for Ruamviboonsuk to Roche, Biocon Biologics, Abbott, 4DMT and Bayer. Two of the AI researchers we track in our Who's Who directory had already shared the paper by the time it hit our radar.