An open network for AI validation in digital pathology

The Centauron Network is an open, inclusive, and decentralized ecosystem designed to bridge the gap between medical domain experts and AI developers, accelerating the creation and validation of robust AI models for digital pathology. At its core, Centauron champions data sovereignty, intellectual property protection, and transparent incentive structures, fostering a new era of trust-based collaboration where anyone can participate and contribute to groundbreaking medical AI.

Key Values of the Centauron Network

• Open and Inclusive Participation: Centauron is built on the principle that innovation thrives when barriers are removed. Its decentralized architecture and user-friendly design, including simplified node operation and the option for delegated nodes, ensure that individuals and institutions of all sizes can easily join, contribute, and benefit from the network, democratizing access to cutting-edge AI development in pathology.
• Decentralized Data Sovereignty: Unlike traditional centralized approaches, Centauron ensures that data owners retain full control over their valuable Whole Slide Images (WSIs) and annotations. Data remains localized on individual nodes, minimizing transfer risks and upholding strict data privacy regulations.
• Intellectual Property Protection: We safeguard the intellectual property of all participants. Through a sophisticated system of fine-grained access controls and an immutable, blockchain-based logging of all data usage, every interaction is transparently recorded, ensuring accountability and trust.
• Federated Computing: AI models are trained and validated where the data resides. Our federated computing architecture allows for powerful AI development without the need to centralize sensitive medical data, enabling the composition of vast, heterogeneous datasets crucial for generalizable and robust AI.
• Trust-Based Collaboration: Centauron builds programmatic trust through cryptographic security and automated rule enforcement via smart contracts. This eliminates the need for complex, individual legal agreements, streamlining collaboration and reducing transactional friction.
• Quality Assurance: We prioritize data quality. Projects within Centauron utilize normative Ground Truth Schemas and standardized terminologies to ensure semantic consistency across diverse data sources. Mechanisms for validating annotation quality further enhance the reliability of datasets.
• Efficient AI Validation: Centauron provides a unique framework for blinded, external validation studies. AI models are submitted as encapsulated containers and executed directly on the data owners' nodes, ensuring unbiased performance evaluation and accelerating the path to clinical implementation.
• Incentivized Participation: A robust data economy rewards contributions. Data owners can receive financial compensation for their curated data and annotations, while AI developers are incentivized by access to diverse datasets and potential remuneration for their validated AI applications.

Roles in the Centauron Network

The Centauron Network thrives on the active participation of various stakeholders, each playing a vital role:

• Project Principal Investigator (Project-PI): The visionary leader who initiates and manages collaborative projects. They define medical research questions, invite partners, curate datasets, and orchestrate Challenges for AI model validation.
• Data Owner (DE): The cornerstone of the network, comprising pathologists and institutions who own or create valuable WSIs and annotations. They contribute their data to projects, maintaining full control and intellectual property rights. Data owners can operate their own nodes or utilize delegated nodes managed by others.
• AI Developer: The innovators who design, train, and refine AI models. They leverage the network's diverse datasets to build powerful diagnostic tools and validate their models' performance in rigorous Challenges.
• Node Operator: The technical backbone of the network, responsible for setting up and maintaining Centauron nodes. While often IT experts, the system is designed to allow data owners to operate their own nodes, fostering true decentralization.

Join the Centauron Network and be part of a collaborative future where medical data fuels groundbreaking AI innovation, securely and efficiently.