ABU DHABI - The Department of Health – Abu Dhabi (DoH) on Friday announced that it will establish an emirate-wide intelligent surgical network in collaboration with Johnson & Johnson.

The first-of-its-kind globally, the network builds on Abu Dhabi's sovereign, intelligent health infrastructure to scale responsible artificial intelligence (AI) across the emirate's operating rooms, improve patient outcomes, and support clinicians.

The collaboration will establish Abu Dhabi as the anchor of a new global ecosystem to advance surgical AI across the world.

The initiative will deploy Johnson & Johnson’s Polyphonic™ open digital ecosystem, in collaboration with existing technology partners including Amazon Web Services (AWS), NVIDIA and Core42. It builds on Abu Dhabi’s integrated provider network to connect operating rooms in Abu Dhabi and aims to accelerate research, support responsible AI adoption, and create a model of care that is continuously improving.

Abu Dhabi’s intelligent surgical network will connect operating rooms across Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi, PureHealth, Mediclinic Group, and NMC Healthcare, giving surgical teams access to advanced analytics and clinical insights at the point of care. This connected model is designed to improve precision, efficiency, training, and consistency of care, while accelerating shared learning, quality improvement, and continued innovation across the emirate and into a global surgical innovation environment.

Dr. Noura Khamis Al Ghaithi, Undersecretary of the DoH, said Abu Dhabi had developed one of the world’s most advanced intelligent healthcare systems by integrating data, AI and digital technologies across the sector.

“Through our connected surgical network and collaboration with Johnson & Johnson, we are strengthening surgical care, enabling smarter clinical decisions, and ensuring every procedure can help to make the next safer and more precise. Abu Dhabi is not piloting AI in healthcare; we are operationalising it across our system to deliver measurable impact for our community and beyond," she said.

The initiative brings together hospitals, government entities, academic institutions, research partners, and technology leaders under DOH’s single governance framework, where insights from before, during, and after every surgery are securely curated, structured, and feed back into the system to support the responsible development and validation of next-generation surgical AI.

The collaboration also establishes Abu Dhabi as the anchor of an open, interoperable surgical innovation environment designed to accelerate responsible AI development and clinical collaboration across the world.

“This groundbreaking collaboration with DoH demonstrates a shared ambition to accelerate the next generation of AI solutions for surgery and drive innovation to meaningfully support surgeons and improve patient care globally,” said Hani Abouhalka, Company Group Chair, Surgery, MedTech, Johnson & Johnson.

For patients, this has the potential to support more precise procedures, more consistent standards of care, and improved surgical experience. For clinicians, the programme aims to deliver smarter tools, stronger decision support, and greater opportunities for continuous learning.

This collaboration extends Abu Dhabi's broader vision to advance precision medicine, AI-enabled care, advanced therapeutics, and clinical research.