The coronavirus outbreak originated China, with Wuhan as its epicenter in late December 2019.
Since it has become a global health hazard, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared a global emergency with more than 14,500 registered cases across the world.
Many countries across the world have issued travel advisories, and some have even banned or restricted people traveling to and from China. Some have even allowed employees to work from home, and make them quarantine themselves if they have previously traveled to the region.
With scientists working hard to find out a cure for this virus, China has received outpouring of helps from many, including those from the tech sector.
Here, Chinese tech giants Alibaba and Baidu have opened up their gene sequencing AI tools to help researchers find a solution.
Alibaba said that it had partnered with The Global Health Drug Discovery Institute from Beijing, to develop an open-sourced data platform to track the spread of the coronavirus using AI. The company has also offered its tools to other institutes to speed up research on viral gene sequencing, protein screening, and other potential solutions for prevention.
The company also provides computing power and data analytics to Beijing Genomics Institute (BGI), one of the world’s largest genomics organizations, and made the tools available for labs working on the research.
Coronavirus in the Wuhan coronavirus outbreak is caused by a virus that can cause pneumonia and other respiratory disease.
Similar to the deadly Ebola virus, coronavirus is like SARS and MERS, and its strain out of Wuhan is a positive-sense, single-strand RNA (+ssRNA), which is the second largest of all RNA virus genomes, This makes it mutates faster than DNA viruses.
As virus is a biological infectious agent that replicates only inside the living cells of an organism, the key to stop this coronavirus is hidden inside its genome.
This is why researchers are isolating this virus strain for vaccine development. China is making its own move, and so do others in the U.S., Australia, Europe and elsewhere. Researchers in many parts of the globe recreate the virus that shared the genome sequence.
Baidu the tech giant that operates China's largest search engine, also opened up LinearFold, its RNA prediction algorithm, to genetic testing agencies, epidemic prevention centers, and scientific research institutes around the world.
The company said that its algorithm can reduce the time it takes to predict and study coronavirus‘s RNA secondary structure from 55 minutes to just 27 seconds:
This tool significantly speeds up the prediction time of a virus’s RNA secondary structure, potentially providing the research community with the opportunity to better focus their efforts on developing a deeper understanding of the virus and aid in vaccine creation.
Other companies are also trying to help to control this 2019-nCoV outbreak.
Google has launched an SOS alert and information related to the virus directly in the search, Facebook and its properties, as well as Twitter are actively scanning posts that spread misinformation.
Apple CEO Tim Cook also announced on Twitter that "...Apple will be donating to groups on the ground helping support all of those affected."
Alibaba founder and tech billionaire Jack Ma has pledged $14.5 million towards fighting the coronavirus outbreak, saying that he is donating 100 million yuan ($14.5 million) through his charitable foundation. Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates through his Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has also pledged assistance.
WeChat app creator Tencent, TikTok owner ByteDance, the giant electronics company Xiaomi, the online-to-offline local life service platform Meituan, and ride-hailing company Didi are among the Chinese firms that are also helping.