Ada, the company behind an artificial intelligence (AI)-powered health app, partnered with the US-based Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and Fondation Botnar, a Swiss organisation, to address a lack of access to basic health services.

In a statement, the company said around 4 billion people across the globe lack access to healthcare. Together with its partners it will launch the Ada Global Health Initiative to tackle the problem “by combining artificial intelligence, human medical expertise and the power of mobile technology to deliver health access to care and guidance at scale.”

“At the centre of these solutions will be Ada’s artificial intelligence technology, which has been trained over the past seven years using real-world medical cases,” the company stated, adding the training also involved insights from doctors and scientists.

The company said that since launching its free health guide app in 2016, it had completed over seven million health assessments and been the top medical app in over 130 countries.

“Since launching Ada, we’ve heard hundreds of stories about how the app has improved or even saved lives,” said Daniel Nathrath, CEO and co-founder of Ada. “Often these stories come from parts of the world where it can be extremely difficult to see a doctor or get professional medical advice, but where people do own, or have access to, a smartphone.”