Providence Health Care Ventures et le NIST nouent un partenariat de recherche pour faire progresser les technologies de confidentialité dans les soins de santé
A new collaboration brings a real-world hospital environment into NIST’s Privacy Engineering Program for the first time with support from Samsung SDS and Knexus.
The agreement marks a step forward in making advanced data privacy tools practical and accessible for health systems, researchers, and small and medium enterprises (SMEs) worldwide.
Samsung SDS and Knexus are co-participants in the initiative. As a major global technology services and cloud provider, Samsung SDS brings the commercialization and computational efficiency of Privacy-Enhancing Technologies (PETs) expertise, specifically targeting enterprise and healthcare environments where data must remain encrypted during both storage and analysis. Knexus brings highly specialized research and development capacity that helps move data science from theory to practical execution. They are widely recognized for their deep technical leadership in Differential Privacy (DP) and Synthetic Data Generation.
Why It Matters
Health care data is among the most sensitive and most valuable information in the world. As health systems increasingly rely on AI and data-sharing to improve patient care, the need for robust, standardized privacy safeguards has never been greater. Yet PETs remain difficult to implement in real-world clinical environments, particularly for organizations without deep technical resources.
This collaboration directly addresses that gap. By embedding NIST’s Privacy Engineering Program within PHC Ventures’ infrastructure, the partnership will produce open-source tools and benchmarking standards designed for the realities of health care and not just the lab.
“Health care is a high-impact domain where global collaboration is essential. This partnership will lead to new tools and advance our understanding of how best to apply PETs in health care and genomics.”
— Gary Howarth, PhD — Privacy Engineering Program Manager, NIST
What They’re Building
The collaboration will focus on three priority areas for the healthcare sector:
- Secure data linkage: enabling health records from multiple sources to be combined for research without compromising individual privacy.
- Genomic data sharing standards: developing privacy-preserving methods to accelerate breakthroughs in precision medicine and epidemiology.
- Deployment-ready open-source tools: translating advanced cryptographic techniques, including Multi-Party Computation (MPC) and Differential Privacy (DP), into practical solutions accessible to health researchers globally.
NIST brings three active programs to the partnership: the PETs Testbed, the Collaborative Research Cycle for de-identification research, and SDNist, a benchmarking toolkit for synthetic data generation. These resources will be adapted to address the unique complexity of clinical data environments.
“We are excited to collaborate with NIST to advance PETs for health care research and improve patient outcomes. Embedding trust in data use is critical, and this partnership will help address usability and deployment challenges through real-world healthcare case studies — informing evolving standards and guidelines.”
— Soyean Kim, PhD, P.Stat. — Director of Digital Data, AI & Partnerships, PHC Ventures
À propos de PHC Ventures
PHC Ventures is the commercialization and digital health arm of Providence Health Care, one of Canada’s largest faith-based health systems. Mandated to scale AI and data innovations developed within the health system, PHC Ventures offers partners access to de-identified clinical data through the Integrated Health Informatics Datalab (IHID) and a growing digital health infrastructure anchored by the upcoming Clinical Support and Research Centre (CSRC) at the new St. Paul’s Hospital on the Jim Pattison Medical Campus in Vancouver.
About Providence Research
Providence Research, the research engine of Providence Health Care, is a globally recognized biomedical and clinical science institute based at St. Paul’s Hospital in Vancouver, British Columbia. Affiliated with the University of British Columbia and Simon Fraser University, it integrates laboratory, clinical, and epidemiological research across more than 30 medical specialties, with world-class excellence in fields like heart and lung innovation, HIV/AIDS, kidney disease, and substance use. Guided by a strong commitment to health equity and social justice, the institute bridges academia and real-world care by actively translating scientific breakthroughs—ranging from cutting-edge AI screening tools to 3D bio-printed tissue—directly to the patient’s bedside.
About NIST
The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is a non-regulatory agency of the U.S. Department of Commerce. NIST’s Privacy Engineering Program leads research and the development of guidance, tools, and frameworks that help organizations implement privacy protections that are technically grounded and practically deployable.
About Samsung SDS
A leader in data and computing technology, Samsung SDS combines generative AI technology with cloud and digital logistics to lead the hyper-automation innovation of companies. Samsung SDS helps companies enhance their productivity and competitiveness by leveraging its Samsung Cloud Platform(SCP) optimized for enterprises, all-in-one managed services reflecting 41 years of industry-specific experience, and SaaS solutions for business innovations. Additionally, Samsung SDS provides globally integrated logistics services based on the digital freight forwarding platform Cello Square to improve the efficiency of logistics operations and to support data-based decision-making.
About Knexus
For two decades, Knexus has worked with dozens of agencies across the US Government as a trusted partner to deliver tailored AI and data solutions to mission-critical problems. With three patents and over 100 peer reviewed scientific papers, the scientists and engineers of Knexus are routinely advancing the frontier between human and machine intelligence. As a Google Cloud Premier Partner and 2x Google Cloud Partner of the Year for Business Applications in Government (2025 & 2026), Knexus offers its customers expertise in working with Google Cloud’s AI products, such as the Vertex AI platform and Gemini models, to deliver AI solutions to the public sector. Learn more at www.knexus.ai.
Media Inquiries:
PHC Ventures
Faye Alexander
Sr. Communications & Engagement Specialist
faye.alexander@phc.ca
NIST
Jim Thompson
Jim.thompson@knexus.ai
202-388-8736