Google President Bets On AI For Cancer Cure In 'Our Lifetime'

Google's President and Chief Investment Officer, Ruth Porat, believes the world is witnessing a period of extraordinary scientific and technological advancement, as artificial intelligence (AI) evolves into something “much more than a chatbot” — with the potential to play a major role in curing cancer, according to media reports.

Speaking at the Fortune Global Forum on Sunday, alongside Barclays Group CEO C.S. Venkatakrishnan and Saudi Arabia's Minister of Investment Khalid Al-Falih, Porat expressed optimism about AI's ability to drive innovation across science, the economy, and society at large.

“We are all privileged to live at this time in history because of the opportunity AI presents,” Porat told the audience.

She described AI not merely as a technological tool, but as a powerful catalyst for transformation that could reshape industries, fuel economic growth, and accelerate human progress, Fortune reported.

“People are playing with AI through chatbots, and that is great, because that gets you on the journey. But then the question is: what does it mean for my country? What does it mean for my business? It's underappreciated how we're already living through significant breakthroughs in health and science,” she added.

Porat cited examples of AI-driven innovation in healthcare, particularly DeepMind's open-source AlphaFold project, which predicts protein structures in 3D. She described it as “the greatest contribution to drug discovery in our lifetime.”

According to Fortune, AlphaFold's results have been used by scientists in over 190 countries to advance research into diseases once considered too complex to tackle.

Porat highlighted the role of AI in early diagnosis, noting that detecting cancer at an early stage can often determine survival outcomes.

“We all know early diagnosis can be the difference between survival or not, or how difficult the course of treatment is,” she said. “Spotting these metastatic cells early is like finding a needle in a haystack — but AI is capable of doing that.”

She concluded confidently, “We should be able to cure cancer in our lifetime.”

Alphabet's AI research division, DeepMind, and its drug discovery subsidiary Isomorphic Labs, are already working to reduce the time required to develop new medicines, according to DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis.

In an interview with Bloomberg TV in September, Hassabis — a Nobel Prize winner — said:

“In the next couple of years, I'd like to see that cut down to a matter of months instead of years. That's what I think is possible — perhaps even faster.”

He revealed that DeepMind is developing a “much more advanced” version of the AlphaFold model, designed to understand not only protein interactions but also to support the discovery of treatments for cancer and immune-related diseases.