But the painstaking process of bringing a drug to market isn't only creating opportunities for AI-focused startups—tech giants are also lending their AI, cloud, and data prowess to land pharma deals.

For example, developing for 5G will enable more cloud-based untethered AR and VR experiences and multi-angle and 360-degree video for games and sporting events. No. 3: Big Tech Confronts Data Privacy. Privacy and security have become lightning-rod issues for the tech industry.

Cloud developers have a chance to tie up with researchers and drugmakers scrambling to develop a coronavirus vaccine. The computing capabilities of cloud developers can be utilized to speed up drug development, and we've seen innovative digital health firms leverage the tech in their efforts to develop a coronavirus vaccine.

Like you mentioned, the voice cloud isn’t HIPAA-compliant. How do you see voice assistants evolving in the clinical space? There’s strong potential for voice tech in healthcare and electronic medical records [EMRs], but there is a ways to go. Not just in the data transit, but in understanding what the experience looks like for a user in the home, a doctor in a hospital or for a care team.

For example, Nissan introduced the futuristic concept of “Invisible-to-Visible” (I2V) technology that overlays information from both a vehicle’s onboard sensors and the cloud onto the windshield.

Examples include Dragon medical products from Nuance Communications, which offer cloud-based speech recognition, transcription and virtual scribing services; startup Suki, a voice assistant that’s been dubbed “Alexa for doctors;” and Saykara, which listens in during patient visits and automatically fills in EMRs.