InterSystems used its recent UK & Ireland Data Summit to set out its case that the value in enterprise AI will go to whoever controls trusted, connected data, rather than to whoever has the most capable AI model. The event also marked a key milestone for the company, 40 years since it opened its first international office in the UK, and for a business whose technology already sits underneath much of the NHS, it's a strong and credible story to be telling as it looks to capitalise on its next phase of AI-enabled growth.
Four decades on, InterSystems still isn't a brand known as widely as perhaps it should be, but its technology supports a remarkable amount of everyday life. More than 1bn patient records are stored on it, around 60% of NHS data flows through its Health Connect integration engine, and Epic, the dominant US electronic health record (EHR) vendor, runs on its database. Outside healthcare, it handles more than 2bn equity trades a day and tracks over 20m shipping containers globally. At the centre of all of it is, InterSystems IRIS Data Platform, which combines a highperformance database with integration and analytics, underpinning its HealthShare and Health Connect interoperability products as well as its TrakCare and IntelliCare EHRs.
CEO Terry Ragon opened the summit by video, explaining that the company had gone "all in" on AI shortly after ChatGPT arrived, including building a new generation of its technology with AI at the core. He also set out a series of leadership changes. Don Woodlock, previously head of health solutions, became President at the start of the year and now runs the business day to day, whilst Ragon remains CEO, focused on long- term strategy and technology. Ragon confirmed that the company will remain private, held in a trust in perpetuity, and that HealthShare, its shared care record and interoperability line, has moved under Senior Vice President Scott Gnau and merged with the data platforms group.
That last change was mentioned almost in passing, though it is a significant move and one that really underpins the firm's strategy, bringing the interoperability products and the data platform together. Ragon also went out of his way to stress that a healthcare executive becoming President does not make InterSystems a healthcare- only company. Whilst health represents the core of the business, the data side has a far wider opportunity, one the business has still not fully exploited in areas such as supply chain and critical national infrastructure.