Anthropic and OpenEvidence Expand AI Medical Tool to 100 Countries

AI startup Anthropic and medical knowledge platform OpenEvidence are launching a collaboration to deliver AI-powered clinical decision support tools to physicians in approximately 100 low- and middle-income countries, the companies announced Tuesday.

The initiative targets regions including Uganda, Angola, Sudan, Haiti, and Mongolia, where healthcare providers often lack consistent access to peer-reviewed medical research, specialist expertise, and continuing medical education resources.

OpenEvidence operates a platform that answers clinical questions by drawing on peer-reviewed medical literature and treatment guidelines. The service is already free to clinicians in the United States and Europe, where U.S. physicians alone consulted the platform 42 million times in August, according to OpenEvidence founder Daniel Nadler. He estimates that several hundred million Americans will have been treated by a doctor who used OpenEvidence to guide care decisions in 2026.

Why it matters

Healthcare systems worldwide face persistent shortages of physicians and specialists, particularly in resource-constrained settings. While AI tools promise to help clinicians navigate vast medical information quickly, most systems have been trained primarily on data from high-income countries. This partnership represents a deliberate effort to adapt AI clinical support for contexts where disease patterns, diagnostic resources, and available treatments differ markedly from wealthier nations—a critical step if AI is to address global health inequities rather than widen them.

Technical approach and regional adaptation

Under the partnership structure, Anthropic will provide back-end AI support while OpenEvidence handles regional customization. The companies emphasized that the system will be "context adaptive," accounting for local healthcare infrastructure differences.

Earlier in 2026, OpenEvidence began working with health organizations in Rwanda and Botswana to adapt its tools for settings with distinct medical conditions and resource constraints. Nadler noted that even facilities without reliable electricity typically have physicians with smartphones, enabling access to medical information that a decade ago would only be available at leading institutions like the Mayo Clinic.

"Access to medical knowledge shouldn't depend on geography," Nadler said.

Reception and concerns

Dr. Ahmed Bendary, a cardiologist at Benha University in Egypt, said expanding access beyond the United States and Europe "would be a tremendous leap forward, particularly in regions where institutional subscriptions to major medical journals are limited, making evidence-based, point-of-care tools even more vital."

However, the deployment of generative AI in clinical settings continues to draw scrutiny. Critics caution that systems trained predominantly on data from wealthy countries may not adequately reflect local practice conditions or disease profiles in the regions now receiving access.

The companies did not disclose financial terms of the collaboration.

The partnership comes as Anthropic expands its healthcare ambitions. Reuters reported last week that the company has built a laboratory for physical biology work as it pushes into drug science, even as some executives and lawmakers call for slower AI development amid public concerns about the technology's reach.

Details of the partnership were first reported by Reuters.