Ireland’s free bowel screening programme is collaborating with Viatel Technology Group for an EU-funded research initiative which explores how AI and microbiome science could help improve the future of colorectal cancer (CRC) screening. This HSE service provides four national population screening programmes to test for breast, cervical and bowel cancer, as well as for diabetic retinopathy. Concluding in 2028, Microb-AI-ome brings together institutions from five EU countries to investigate whether AI-driven analysis of gut microbiome data can improve the accuracy of bowel cancer screening. Leveraging Microsoft Azure technology, Viatel has developed a new, cloud-based data-management solution to manage the Irish data repository. It analyses millions of data points per patient to identify an individual’s risk of pre-cancer changes or bowel cancer.